


Coming Home

by Ellie603



Series: Home [1]
Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-03
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-05 04:57:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 39,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3106892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellie603/pseuds/Ellie603
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben doesn't get offered the Assistant City Manager job in Pawnee and has to go back on the road for the state government. As his job gets him a new partner and takes him to new cities, Ben has to figure out if this is all worth him being away from the only town, and the only person, where he ever really felt at home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Day 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first story I'm putting up on ao3 and the first one I've ever done for Parks. I'm not even a little bit ready for this show to end, but writing a fic seems like a good way to start to say goodbye. Thanks for reading!

Ben walked through a set of double doors into a city hall smaller than the one where he had spent the past six months. One glance at the plain, cream-colored walls, interrupted here and there by a plaque or a portrait, told Ben that this new city was very different from Pawnee. No murals depicting Native American atrocities or town tragedies adorned the walls. The town seal that was visible in various locations was a small artistic rendering of the façade of the town hall, rather than the two men of Pawnee’s seal, one post-buffalo slaughter and another chopping down every tree in sight. This town seemed completely normal. And Ben found that he couldn’t take even a small degree of pleasure in that fact.

He sighed quietly to himself and thought back to his last day in the city that he might even have considered his home.

Chris had just been appointed city manager, and he had wanted Ben to stay on and become assistant city manager, but the city council had been adamant that the previous assistant city manager retain his position, at least for a while. So Ben knew he had to head back to Indianapolis.

He had kept the fact that he was leaving Pawnee from his friends in the Parks Department for as long as he could. It wasn’t until his last day in Pawnee that he actually worked up the courage to grab Leslie in the hallway and confess to her that he wasn’t going to be back the next day.

Leslie had looked crushed as the meaning of Ben’s announcement washed over her. She had stared at him, her always smiling face falling and what Ben thought might have been tears coming to her eyes. “Oh,” she’d said, quietly. And then she had raced off and left Ben to go find the rest of the department and tell them the news.

Tom had clapped him on the back and told him that he was sorry to see him go, even though he was a huge nerd. Ron and Donna had frowned and said things would be different without him around. Even April had seemed kind of sad when Ben dropped by the shoeshine stand to tell her and Andy.

That night he had sullenly attended Andy and April’s party/secret wedding. In any other town he wouldn’t have bothered to come to something like this. He was moving on, and who knew if he was ever going to see these people again; why was he supposed to care about them? But this was Pawnee, and that made it different. These people were some of the best friends he’d had in a long time, and he was really going to miss them.

He had barely seen Leslie for most of the night as she ran around trying to stop Andy and April from “throwing their lives away”. But Ben could see that it was a little more than just concern for Andy and April that was keeping Leslie running around. Every so often, when she thought Ben wasn’t looking, she had glanced over at him and frowned, even her eyes looking sad.

Finally, after April and Andy got married, Leslie disapproving, but not stopping them, Leslie had walked over to Ben and asked him to come with her away from the crowd of Pawneans dancing and celebrating Andy and April.

Leslie had stopped in the next room and bent over to grab something out of a bag sitting beside a sofa. She had gestured for him to sit down, which he had, and then she had handed him the object she had gotten from the bag.

It was a scrapbook that Leslie had evidently put together that day. Ben had flipped through the pages quickly, his eyes wide. There were pictures from the Freddy Spaghetti concert back when he had first come to Pawnee. He saw Leslie’s ID badge from the shutdown that labeled her as essential and flyers from the movie screening of Twilight in the park and the Chamber of Commerce where Leslie had made her brilliant presentation, despite being delirious with the flu. Ben spotted numerous pictures and what looked like a radio transcript from his stint as “Ben Wyatt: Human Disaster.” And, of course, there were several pages covering just the Harvest Festival. Ben stopped on one of the last pictures in the album and smiled softly. He and Leslie were leaning over the railing around Li’l Sebastian’s pen at the Harvest Festival, Ben wearing his “I met Li’l Sebastian at the Pawnee Harvest Festival” shirt that had been sitting in his half-packed suitcase back at the Pawnee Super Sweets Motel. Ben was grinning hugely at Leslie, probably just having lied to her that he _totally_ understood the big deal about Li’l Sebastian, and Leslie was staring back at him with a matching smile. The famous mini horse was in the foreground, and Ben couldn’t help but think that this picture was everything he loved about Pawnee. It was a town with it’s own weird quirks and individuality, represented by the fame of the small horse, and it was a town that had Leslie Knope, a woman who in just a few short months had become incredibly important to him.

“I didn’t really have time to make it that nice,” she had said shyly, evidently worried that Ben wasn’t going to like it, “but I had to do something.”

Ben had looked up and shook his head, his mouth open slightly. “This is the greatest present I’ve ever gotten,” he had said, and he had meant it.

He had stood up, leaving the album open on the sofa, and pulled Leslie into a hug.

“I’m really going to miss Pawnee,” he had said as they broke apart.

Leslie had given him a half smile. “Pawnee’s really going to miss you.”

Both of them understood that they weren’t really talking about Pawnee.

Ben had shaken hands with Ron, Tom, and Jerry and had been pulled into bear hugs by Andy and Chris, who had _literally_ never been more upset about anything in his entire life. April had hugged him so quickly that he was half convinced that he had only imagined it happening, and then he had been left at the door with just Leslie.

He had fought back the urge to kiss the beautiful now-former coworker in front of him as she looked up at him with her big, sad eyes. Nothing could happen between the two of them. He was going to Indianapolis and then on to another city and another and another. It just wouldn’t work.

“You better come back and visit,” Leslie had said, blinking rapidly.

“I will. I promise,” Ben had replied. He had told department directors and workers that he had befriended in towns all over Indiana that he would try to come back and visit, but this promise to Leslie was the only one he had ever made and meant.

He had hugged his partner in crime again and shot their finger pistol handshake at her one last time. She had responded, making gun noises and laughing like she always did. Ben had pretended not to notice the tear slowly making its way down her cheek.

And then he had left, the beautiful scrapbook under his arm as a tear of his own dripped down his nose.

And here he was a few days later in Richmond, Indiana, a town smaller than Pawnee and in much less desperate straits than Sweetums-dominated city. Four to six weeks was the time frame for this job. Ben hoped it wouldn’t be too terrible.

He had a new partner, since Chris was back being city manager in Pawnee. The new man’s name was Martin, and Ben thought he seemed okay, if anything, much more normal than Chris, not that that was hard. Martin had an good auditing record and hadn’t brought up Ice Town on the drive in, so Ben figured things would go well with them working together.

The Richmond city manager met them in the building’s lobby and proceeded to show them around City Hall. He and Martin met town employees from every department, and for Ben it was business as usual. Most of the workers ranged from apathetic to unhappy about their jobs, just like those at nearly every other Indiana town Ben had visited. Every so often, Ben and Martin met an employee who seemed to actually care about his or her department and who seemed hostile to the Indianapolis auditors coming into their government. Ben usually would have been annoyed by something like this, since it wasn’t his fault that their town was in debt, but after Pawnee and one particular blonde public servant who had called him a jerk and told him that a town was made up of real people with real feelings, he looked on these more enthusiastic government employees with a new respect.

Their last stop was the Richmond Parks and Recreation Department. Ben took a deep breath as he and Martin followed the city manager inside. Martin seemed to notice Ben’s uneasiness as he glanced at Ben curiously.

“I spent a lot of time with Parks and Rec in my last town,” Ben explained briefly, leaving out just how invested he had been in Pawnee’s Parks Department and how much that group of people, one in particular, had meant to him.

Martin nodded and turned back to the employees they were about to meet.

The department director was a serious looking man named John Peterson who had a mustache that would rival Ron Swanson’s. He gave Ben a firm handshake and said that he hoped they could come to some sort of agreement that could get the town back on its feet without having to cut too much of the department. This man was obviously not a Ron Swanson-Libertarian, but Ben noted that the handful of other employees in the small office seemed to look up to their boss with respect. Even the bored-looking assistant with her eyes glued to a computer screen glanced up as the director spoke. Ben found that he instantly respected the other man too.

As the city manager excused himself so Ben and Martin could get to work, a woman entering the department’s central area caught his eye. She was relatively tall with dark brown hair, and she was carrying a stack of papers, which she unceremoniously dropped on the assistant’s desk before hurrying over to greet Ben and Martin.

“Bridgette Evans,” the woman said, extending her hand to Ben enthusiastically. “Deputy Director.”

“Ben Wyatt,” he replied, the serious expression he had adopted faltering slightly as Ms. Evans introduced herself as Deputy Director. He wished for the millionth time that he was back in a different Parks Department with a different Deputy Director.

“Is there somewhere we can all go to talk?” Martin asked Mr. Peterson who nodded and showed he and Ben into their conference room.

Martin and Ben began to work into a rhythm, Ben handling the numbers and Martin doing more of the explaining. Mr. Peterson seemed very receptive to what Martin told him, nodding and frowning, glancing at his worried looking workers outside the glass-walled room every few minutes. Ms. Evans on the other hand seemed extremely enthusiastic and eager to please, but after the fifth time she interrupted the department director, Ben figured out that she was really out for John’s job. John seemed more annoyed with her than threatened, rolling his eyes very subtly as she interrupted him for the sixth time. Ms. Evans suggested several workers in their department that could be cut as John ignored her ideas and offered his own budget solutions that didn’t require any employees to be fired.

Ms. Evans didn’t seem to have any attachments to the workers in her department. In fact, she didn’t seem to care about anyone in the Richmond city government besides herself. Ben thought to himself that Bridgette Evans was the person Leslie Knope would have been if she had cared more about power and position and less about being kind and loyal and dedicated to her coworkers and to the public. Ben knew he really wasn’t going to get along well with Ms. Evans.

He still shook her hand as they finished up, and he and Martin left the department and headed back to the city manager’s office where they had set up their laptops and supplies.

“That Evans lady’s a piece of work,” Martin said casually as they walked down the hallway.

Ben grinned in reply. “Yeah, really. I was about to ask her to leave to we could talk to just John and get some real work done.”

Martin laughed appreciatively.

Ben was pleased that his new partner wasn’t going to take any crap from this deputy director or from anyone else. It was nice to have someone to help him deliver the bad news for a change.

Ben and Martin met with some other employees and poured over the Richmond town budget for a few more hours until five o’clock finally came. The auditing team decided to go grab a bite to eat at a local burger joint recommended to them by the city manager.

“So, you were in Pawnee before this, right?” Martin asked conversationally after they ordered.

Ben nodded. “Yup, Pawnee. Pretty interesting place.”

Martin laughed. “I’ll say. Is it really half infested with raccoons?”

Ben grinned almost fondly at the mention of Pawnee’s town menaces. “Yeah, the raccoons have their own part of the town, and the people have the rest of it.”

Martin shook his head, disbelievingly. “A buddy of mine drove through there once. He said he tried to stop and get a bottle of water at a gas station, and he couldn’t find one that wasn’t filled with sugar.”

Ben smiled wider. “The Sweetums Corporation basically owns the place. It actually owned the hotel I lived at for the six months I was there. The Pawnee Super Sweets,” Ben recalled.

Martin took a drink from his glass of no-sugar-added regular Richmond water. “Wow, six months. That’s a long time for an auditor.”

“Well, the town was doing really badly when we got there. We actually had to shut the whole city government down for three months,” Ben explained. “And then the Deputy Director of the Parks Department had this great idea to bring back the Pawnee Harvest Festival, and so Chris and I stayed to help out. It was a huge success, and now the town’s back on it’s feet and thriving.”

“And Chris is still there, right?” Martin asked.

Ben nodded. “Yeah, he’s the temporary city manager, though I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up staying there permanently.”

“You said the Deputy Director of the Parks Department had that Harvest Festival idea?” Martin asked, clarifying. “Must be better than our Bridgette Evans here.”

Ben’s face lit up instantly. “Absolutely! Leslie was amazing. The greatest public servant I’ve ever met. I’ve never seen anyone work so hard or care so much. She was really inspiring. Nothing like Ms. Evans.” _Or like anyone else here or in any other town in Indiana for that matter,_ Ben added to himself.

The conversation turned to the Richmond town budget and the work they were going to have to do as their burgers arrived.

They made it back to the hotel by seven, and Ben said good night to Martin and headed back to his room. He sighed slightly at his partially unpacked suitcase that contained all of his possessions as he set his laptop down on the table on the side of the room. He was certain this hotel would be better than the Pawnee Super Sweets, but he still wished he were back in that weird little town where he had felt at home.

He sighed and opened his laptop to check his email. He registered that he had a few emails from Richmond employees and from his boss in Indianapolis, but he ignored them in favor of one from an email address that he knew well because of the sheer quantity of emails he had received from the sender in the past six months. Leslie.

He opened it and found a message which included numerous words in all caps, a probably unnecessary amount of exclamation points, and an attachment. Ben grinned hugely and began to read.

**HEY BEN!!!!!!!**

**I know today’s the day you started over in Richmond, so I just wanted to say that I hope your first day went AMAZING and that you have just as great a time there as you did in Pawnee (I know this is impossible since Pawnee is the greatest town in America and Richmond SUCKS, but all you can do is be positive and try to look for things in Richmond that aren’t completely awful or that remind you of Pawnee!!!).  You’ll have to let me know how things are going and how your new partner is. Chis has been as close to inconsolable as I think Chris Trager can be, which is to say that he’s been exercising constantly in his office as he tries to avoid thinking about you auditing towns without him and not living in Pawnee anymore. He told me that he’s been doing something called “sleep running” to try to keep his body focused on physical activity instead of feelings even when he’s not awake. I don’t know; it’s weird.**

**Things aren’t quite back to normal here. Andy and April are still married (somehow!!!) and they’re still off on their honeymoon at Andy’s friend Burly’s family lakehouse. They sent us a video a couple days ago, and apparently everything’s okay. I’m pretty surprised, but maybe they’ll make this work. They ARE really great together, and even though I’m not totally okay with this I am REALLY HAPPY for them!!! Actually their video gave me a great idea to make one for you, so that’s in the attachment!!!!**

**WE MISS YOU!!!!! Write back soon!!!!!!!!!!!!**

**Leslie Knope  
** **Deputy Director Pawnee Parks and Recreation Department**

Ben couldn’t stop smiling as he read through Leslie’s message. It was nice to know that Chris missed him, but even nicer to know that Leslie was thinking of him and wanted to tell him how things were going. And Ben honestly really cared.

He clicked the attachment and a new window opened up with a video. Ben pressed the play button and Leslie’s face appeared on the screen.

“Hey Ben!” the blonde Deputy Director said enthusiastically, waving at him. “I just wanted to let you know how much we all miss you and show you how things are going here in Pawnee without you.”

Ben noticed her face fall slightly as she pointed out that Ben wasn’t there.

She quickly turned the camera around to Tom.

“Tom! I’m making a video for Ben! Say hi!”

Tom stared hard at Leslie before finally addressing the camera. “Hey Ben. No one’s come in here and said something nerdy in days, and I guess I actually kind of miss that. Weird. But anyway, I was at the Snakehole the other night…”

Ben shook his head, laughing, as Tom launched into a story about a girl he had “almost” picked up at his club.

“Okay, okay, goodbye Tom,” Leslie said, finally getting fed up with Tom’s self-promotion and walking out to the main area of the department.

“Donna!” she approached the other woman. “I’m making a video for Ben off in Richmond.”

Donna glanced up at the camera and gave a partially sincere smile. “Hey Ben, we all miss back here in Pawnee. Especially your girl Leslie here, I’m pretty sure she’s mentioned you about 50 times since you left.”

“Okay, it hasn’t been 50,” Leslie said from behind the camera.

Ben’s grin grew even wider. It seemed his friend missed him just as much as he missed her.

“Hi Ben! Oh, jeez,” came another voice from the video. The camera panned sideways to let Ben see that Jerry had tripped over some cords and spilled his coffee trying to move over to say hi to the camera.

“Come on, Jerry,” Leslie said, annoyed. “Be professional.”

She turned the camera away from the clumsy man and walked into Ron’s office. “Ron, I’m making a video for Ben. Could you say hi?”

“Hello, Ben.” Ron stopped and turned back to his desk.

Ben had to laugh. He missed the department director with his policy of the fewer words spoken, the better the conversation.

Leslie left Ron’s office and returned to her own. Tom had left, and Leslie was by herself as she turned the camera back around so Ben could see her face.

“I would go get Chris to say hi to you, but I’m kind of afraid of what that would do to him, so I’m just going to leave that for another time.” She sighed sadly. “It’s really weird here without you, Ben. I mean I know you weren’t here for most of the time I’ve worked for the government, but you really made a place for yourself in Pawnee, and I can’t tell you how strange it is coming in to work and knowing that you won’t stop by my office to say hi or ask me how our parks projects are going.”

Ben felt the exact same way about working in a city hall almost three hours away from Pawnee’s.

“But I hope everything’s going well out there, and you _better_ keep in touch.” She looked as though she might hurt him if he didn’t reply to her email immediately. “Miss you, Ben. Go save another town.”

The video ended, and Ben was left with a goofy grin on his face and an intense longing to hop in his car and drive as fast as he could back to Pawnee, back to his new home. That was out of the question, but writing Leslie back wasn’t, so he clicked reply and began to type.

**Leslie! Hey!**

**It’s so great to hear from you! I can’t even tell you how much I miss Pawnee. The hotel I’m staying at doesn’t look even a little bit sketchy and the town hall doesn’t have a single bloody mural. As I write this, I realize that sounds sarcastic, but I’m actually completely serious. Richmond doesn’t have nearly as much personality as Pawnee does, and I really miss that.**

**My new partner, Martin, is a pretty nice guy. He’s not as ever-positive as Chris is, but he’s got a lot of experience, and I think we’re going to work well together. I still miss Chris, of course (you can tell Chris that, I feel like he’d like to hear that), but at least Martin either doesn’t know about or has decided not to mention Ice Town, so that’s good for me.**

**The employees here are pretty standard. Most of them don’t really care, but there are still a few with some degree of enthusiasm. I used to think those kind of workers were a nuisance, but after hanging around a certain parks department employee I met in Pawnee, I have a new found respect for them.** **J The Parks Department director here reminds me a little of Ron, but he used the word “compromise” as a legitimate suggestion in our meeting today, so clearly it’s not that much of a similarity. The Deputy Director is some suck-up, who I’m pretty sure is out for the director’s job. I definitely prefer the last Parks deputy director I met to this one, no contest.**

**Keep me posted on Pawnee news, and thanks so much for the video and the email. They really brightened up my otherwise pretty unexciting day. I really miss all you guys.**

**Ben**

Ben sent the message and sighed, figuring he should go through the rest of his emails. Instead, the other object on the table with his laptop caught his eye: the scrapbook he had received from Leslie on his last night in Pawnee. He had already flipped through it enough times to have closely examined every picture and every scrap of paper at least twice, but Ben closed his computer and picked up the book again anyway, flopping down on the bed and turning to his favorite picture, the one of he and Leslie at the Harvest Festival. It was going to be a long four to six weeks, but at least he knew he had people in a town that had become his home that missed him and cared about him. An email and a video and a scrapbook from Leslie Knope were all he needed to survive out here by himself. He could do this. He would be okay.


	2. Four to Six Weeks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading and leaving feedback! It means a lot!

The first few days in Richmond passed slowly for Ben, but things gradually picked up. Ben remembered once again why he had spent so many years auditing for the state government; he loved the challenge of trying to fix a budget. There was something about number crunching and trying to come up with a new solution to a problem that Ben just really enjoyed. And Martin definitely got it too.

Martin was a great partner, and every day he and Ben did more and more to perfect their rhythm. When angry employees burst into their makeshift office, Ben stepped back and let Martin try to pacify them. If Martin’s calm and friendly demeanor didn’t work, Ben would enter the conversation with the numbers and the tough attitude that had led to his title of “Mean Ben” back in Pawnee. The difference between Martin and Ben wasn’t nearly as jarring as the difference between Chris and Ben had been, but it got the job done. The employees were all at least relatively cooperative, different from the last town he had been in, he regularly remembered, grinning as he missed his favorite employee from Pawnee, who had done everything she could to make his life difficult for the first three months they had known each other.

Said favorite employee still maintained regular contact with Ben, a fact which Ben was immensely grateful for. He and Leslie emailed each other at least every other day, Ben telling Leslie all about the Richmond city government and entertaining her with Richmond/Pawnee comparisons that put Pawnee miles ahead of the smaller town, and Leslie giving Ben updates on Parks Department business and on the lives of all of their friends back in Pawnee. Whenever Ben saw or thought of something that reminded him of Leslie, he dropped her a quick text, and she did the same to him. A picture of waffles in a Richmond diner from Ben was met with an almost immediate reply of a picture of J.J.’s Diner waffles from Leslie. Ben didn’t know if he was just making it up in his mind or not, but he was pretty sure that J.J.’s waffles were better.

His other friends stayed in touch with him too. Chris sent reports about the government accompanied by exercise and health tips and expressions of his sadness at losing Ben, who was _literally_ the greatest fellow employee and friend that Chris had ever had. Tom and Donna texted or emailed whenever they saw something nerdy that reminded them of him. Ben would usually have been annoyed by their labeling of everything he enjoyed as “nerdy,” but really he was just happy that they missed him, in whatever capacity. Jerry checked in every so often with sweet emails hoping he was doing well. These emails often came with attachments that were clearly not meant for Ben to receive, but that Jerry had evidently attached by accident. April and Andy sent Ben a video message from their honeymoon just a day after Ben received his first video message from Leslie. This pair made fun of him too, but Ben didn’t even care. He replied to the couple that day, and since then he had received a sporadic correspondence from each of them. Andy emailed him random facts and part-gibberish accounts of his days, and April sent death threats. Despite being terrified of April, Ben was still touched that both of them still wanted to talk to him. Ben never heard from Ron, not that he had expected too. The man still used a typewriter primarily, so Ben hadn’t figured that he and Ron would stay in contact. Of course, Ben knew what was going on with everyone through Leslie, so this relatively limited contact that he had with the rest of his Pawnee friends was enough.

Even though he missed his friends back in Pawnee, Ben did start to make friends with some of the Richmond workers. He and Martin got along well with the cooperative city manager almost immediately, and Ben even went out for a drink with some of the city planning guys after work a few times.

Martin had asked Ben to handle all of the Parks business, since Ben had so much experience with it already. This meant that Ben spent a lot of time working with John Peterson, who had a lot of good ideas, but was relatively solitary, leaving Ben, more often than not, alone with Ms. Evans.

Bridgette Evans was much less a source of good ideas and much more a source of gossip and overwhelming flattery. Ben was fairly certain she would have been happy to sell out her entire department for a promotion, an attitude which annoyed Ben immensely. What he respected in a fellow employee was honesty and loyalty, and, from what he had seen, Ms. Evans had neither of these qualities.

One day, about two weeks into his stay in Richmond, Ben had been stuck in the department’s conference room with only Ms. Evans for almost an entire afternoon as they tried to figure out what programs could be cut to balance the budget without hurting the department. Ms. Evans’s willingness to cut anything and everything, just to get Ben’s approval, was wearing his patience very thin, and he was pretty sure he was going to crack if this continued.

Five o’clock came, and Martin asked him if he wanted to go get a drink and grab some food. Ben replied that he wasn’t really hungry and just wanted to get some work done without Bridgette Evans ranting about the lack of appreciation for her work. Martin laughed and then left Ben alone in the office.

Ben had been typing at his desk for about five minutes when his phone rang. He checked the screen and found the call was from Leslie. Without hesitating, Ben answered it.

“Hello?”

Instantly Leslie’s voice responded. “Hey, Ben! It’s Leslie Knope from the Pawnee Parks Department.”

Ben laughed, a smile growing across his face. “Yeah, Leslie. I know. What’s up? It’s been a while. Or it’s been a while since we talked on the phone. I mean, I just emailed you yesterday, so it hasn’t really been a while since I talked to you.” Ben was aware that he was rambling, but he didn’t care. He was talking to Leslie! Today had been a pretty crappy day, but this phone call automatically made it at least ten times better.

Leslie was laughing on the other end of the line. “I just wanted to tell you about what happened to me at work today, and I wanted to hear your reaction. You aren’t busy are you?” She suddenly sounded worried.

“Oh, not at all. I’m still at the office working on some stuff, but that’s not even a little bit important,” Ben assured her, honestly. “What happened?”

“Okay, good.” She launched into a story. “Well, Chris has us working on a new health initiative, because he’s Chris, so my best friend, and beautiful nurse, Ann Perkins came in with a cholesterol testing kit, and we were talking, and she asked if I had been thinking about dating anyone recently, and I said no.”

Ben was simultaneously pleased that Leslie wasn’t dating anyone and upset that he wasn’t dating her. It was times like this when he thought about Leslie that he hated being in Richmond. Of course he thought about Leslie most of the time, which really summed up his feelings about his temporary location.

“So Ann suggested I try online dating,” Leslie continued, “and I didn’t want to, but she convinced me and helped me make a profile, but then she got really confused when I said my favorite place in the world was that wildflower mural up on the second floor. You know the one I’m talking about?” Leslie paused for Ben to answer.

Ben grinned. “Yeah, I really like that mural.” It was one of city hall’s only murals that didn’t depict some sort of atrocity, and Ben had always kind of had a soft spot for it for that reason. Plus, he had come upon Leslie sitting on the bench in front of it on several occasions, so he had always associated the mural with her. It didn’t surprise him in the least that it was Leslie’s favorite place in the world.

He could almost hear Leslie’s smile as she replied. “I do too. I’m sitting in front of it now, actually. Everyone else is out in the courtyard, so I figured I’d come up here.”

Ben imagined his friend back in Pawnee sitting on her bench in front of that mural talking rapidly on the phone to him. He sighed quietly, wishing he could actually be there to sit with her in person.

“Anyway,” Leslie continued, “Ann and I filled out the profile, and I had this 98%, soulmate level, match.”

Ben’s heart sank momentarily. Was this phone call Leslie telling him that she had a new boyfriend? Ben really didn’t want to hear that.

“So she clicked on it, and it was Tom.” Leslie stopped.

Ben didn’t respond for a few seconds. “Tom? _Haverford_?” he finally spluttered out.

Leslie laughed on the other end of the call, this clearly being the thing she had wanted to hear Ben’s reaction to. “Yeah, Tom Haverford. Which made no sense at all, obviously, so I called the guy over at hoosiermate.com and complained, and then I decided to take Tom out to lunch to see how this had happened. It was pretty much a disaster, and then I told Tom that we were matched up on the site, and he thought it was hilarious, so he kept bugging me about it for the rest of the day until I finally had to take him out of a meeting and kiss him to get him to shut up. But Chris saw and then lectured me about how I, as a superior, can’t have a romantic relationship with an inferior.” She finally stopped to take a breath.

Ben really didn’t know what to say in response to all of that. “Um, wow.”

Leslie sighed tiredly. “It’s been such a weird day, Ben.”

All Ben could do was laugh, and soon Leslie joined him.

“That honestly sounds so much better than my day out here,” Ben replied, still laughing quietly.

“Another fun meeting with Ms. Bridgette Evans of Suck-Up-Ville?” She added a snooty British accent to Ms. Evans’s name.

Ben grinned into the phone. He was so grateful that he had Leslie to complain to about Richmond and everything. “Yup. It was so much fun!” he added sarcastically. “She only told me five times how much better a department director she would be than John. That’s a new record!”

They both laughed again.

“Sorry you have to work with such a jerk, Ben,” Leslie said genuinely. “I wish you could work back here with all of us non-jerks.”

Ben half smiled. “Yeah, I wish I could too. I miss you guys. How’s everyone doing?”

“Well, Ron just beat Chris in a cook-off to allow the commissary to continue to serve hamburgers,” Leslie said off-handedly. “Ron made a normal hamburger, and Chris made some turkey burger with chutney. Also, what’s chutney?”

Ben laughed. “Ah, the patented Traeger Turkey Burger! Chris always loved to talk about that. I really don’t know what chutney is though; we should probably ask Chris.” Ben paused for a moment, realizing something. “Wait, did Chris actually _eat_ a real hamburger?”

“Yeah, he did,” Leslie replied, a smile in her voice. “And he said it was better.”

Ben shook his head. “Wow. Chris Traeger eating red meat. I never thought I’d see the day.”

“Yeah.”

The pair settled into comfortable silence for a few moments.

“So are you going to keep trying the online dating thing?” Ben finally asked, hesitantly.

There was the briefest pause on the other end before Leslie spoke. “I don’t think so. I like to meet people in person, you know?”

Ben smiled. “Yeah, me too.” If he had been in Pawnee at that moment sitting next to Leslie at her favorite place in the world, he would have kissed her and told her that he was glad they had met in person. He wasn’t completely sure if Leslie liked him that way or not, but if he could judge anything by the quantity of emails she sent to him and the amount it appeared she thought about him on a daily basis, he was pretty sure that this wasn’t just him. Not that he could do anything about it, since he was nearly three hours away from her with no immediate plans to return. All he could do was talk to this wonderful friend for a while about her ideas for the city hall health initiative and his plans for fixing the Richmond budget without going crazy.

And that’s what he did. Nearly an hour had gone by before he heard Ann’s voice faintly on the other line asking Leslie if she wanted to head out.

“Oh, yeah, um, give me a sec,” he heard Leslie reply to her friend before she directed her voice back to him. “I guess I should let you go. It was really great to actually hear your voice.”

Ben gave his phone the goofy grin that often was the result of an interaction with Leslie Knope. “Yeah, same here. We’ll talk soon, right?”

“Absolutely,” Leslie replied enthusiastically. “Have a good night, Ben.”

“You too, Leslie.”

A week and several usual Leslie emails later, Ben found himself almost completely finished with Richmond Parks Department business, and, more importantly, almost completely finished dealing with Bridgette Evans. Ben and Martin still had what they estimated to be almost two more weeks worth of work left in the town, but the Parks budget was almost completely figured out. Ben was thrilled.

“It’s a shame you won’t be around here too much anymore,” Ms. Evans said casually to Ben as they sat in their usual seats across the conference room table from one another. “You’ve been great to have around in the department.”

Ben almost rolled his eyes at the woman’s obnoxious flattery. He just wanted to get out of here as soon as possible.

But Ms. Evans kept going. “It’s almost five. You want to go grab dinner somewhere?”

“I think I’ve talked about the Parks budget enough today already, Bridgette, no offense,” Ben replied, barely looking up from his spreadsheets.

Bridgette laughed much more exuberantly than necessary, throwing Ben off-guard. He glanced up at her, puzzled.

“I meant could we go grab dinner somewhere and _not_ talk about work,” Bridgette explained, smiling at him almost coyly.

Ben’s eyes widened in surprise. Bridgette Evans was asking him out on a _date_. Ben opened his mouth to reply, but found it difficult to formulate a sentence. “I, um, I don’t think I can, but, uh, thanks for the, uh, offer.” He stood up awkwardly. “I have to go. Um, I’ll see you around.” He grabbed his laptop and his papers hurriedly and then almost ran out of the department, leaving Bridgette Evans staring after him.

Ben was extremely grateful to find he and Martin’s office empty when he reached it. He set the papers and the laptop down on his desk and sunk in his chair. He had not handled that situation well, but seriously where had that come from? Ben was bewildered. He momentarily wished that Martin actually was around so Ben could tell someone what had happened. But, as he thought about it, Ben didn’t really want Martin, or anyone in Richmond for that matter, to know what had just happened. The only person he really wanted to talk about this to was… Leslie.

Without thinking, Ben picked up his phone, pulled up Leslie’s contact and pressed call.

“Leslie Knope, Pawnee Parks Department.”

Ben had to laugh at her always-formal introduction. “Hey Leslie, it’s Ben. Are you busy?”

“Not really,” she replied, a slight hesitation in her voice.

Ben could imagine his friend sitting at her desk surrounded by mountains of work as she pretended that she was free so Ben could talk to her. Leslie was really an amazing friend.

“What’s up?” she asked curiously.

Ben paused. This was a pretty weird reason to call his friend, but she _had_ called him the week before to tell him she had kissed Tom, so Ben just took a deep breath and began. “Well, today was my last day working with the Parks Department here.”

“Yay!” Leslie replied. “No more snooty Bridgette Evans!”

“Well, that’s the thing,” Ben said slowly. “Just five minutes ago ‘snooty Bridgette Evans’ asked me out on a date.”

There was silence on the other end of the line for a few moments. “Bridgette Evans, _THE_ Bridgette Evans asked you, _Ben Wyatt_ , out on a date?” Leslie asked incredulously.

Ben inhaled slightly, glad that Leslie saw the ludicrousness of his situation. “Yeah. It was really weird.”

“Well, what did you say?” Leslie asked. “She’s really pretty, or, I mean, from what you’ve said, she _sounds_ really pretty…”

Ben narrowed his eyes at his phone. “Leslie Knope, did you Facebook stalk Bridgette Evans?”

Leslie didn’t say anything for a moment until Ben finally heard a tiny, sheepish, “maybe.”

Ben couldn’t keep himself from laughing at his friend. “Why’d you do that?”

Leslie’s voice grew defensive. “Well, I wanted to know what this person you were always complaining about looked like, and, you know, you always complained about me when we first met, and now we’re good friends, so I thought that maybe something like that might happen with her.” Leslie’s voice grew quieter and quieter as she finished.

Ben almost scoffed at Leslie’s words. “ _Bridgette_ be like _you_? No way! You were a total pain in the ass, but you cared so much and worked so hard that I had to like you. Bridgette doesn’t care about anyone. There’s _no_ comparison between you two.”

Leslie laughed slowly, and Ben just wished that he could go back to Pawnee and give his amazing friend a hug and tell her all this in person.

“So, what did you say to her?” Leslie asked finally.

“Oh,” Ben said, jerked back into reality. “Well, I was so surprised that I basically rambled at her for a minute and then sprinted out of the conference room.”

Leslie had already started laughing before he had finished his sentence. “You really don’t do well in stressful situations, do you?” she said as she tried to catch her breath.

“Hey! Rude!” Ben replied in mock offense. “But, yeah, that’s completely accurate.”

Leslie gave one last small laugh and then sighed. “I wish I could have been there to see it.”

Ben smiled. “Yeah, I wish you could have been here too. I mean, not to laugh at me, but just to… you know… be here…” Ben trailed off knowing that he had just come pretty close to telling Leslie that he liked her. Of course, she probably already knew that. Ben had been pretty transparent about how much he loved spending time with his friend and about how much he missed her. Leslie was smart, and she could read him pretty well. Of course she had to know.

“Yeah,” Leslie replied softly. “I’d love to see you. And I’d love to give Ms. Evans a piece of my mind! She’s disgracing the position of Deputy Director of Parks and Recreation!”

Ben had to laugh at Leslie’s enthusiasm. Wow, he missed that.

Martin walked into the office. “Ben, do you have a second?”

Ben held up a finger to Martin to tell him to give him a minute.

“Martin just came in, and we have some stuff to go over,” Ben explained, bitterly, not wanting to end their conversation, “so I have to go. I just wanted to tell you about… that.”

He could almost hear Leslie smiling back in Pawnee. “I’m really glad you did. I’ll email you later, okay?”

“Okay.” Ben grinned. “Talk to you soon, Leslie.”

“Bye, Ben.”

He hung up and turned back to Martin. “Sorry about that. What’s up?”

“Who were you talking to?” Martin asked curiously, as he sat down at his desk across from Ben’s.

Ben smiled to himself. “Just one of my Parks Department friends from back in Pawnee. That great deputy director I told you about.”

Martin nodded in understanding, but he gave Ben a searching look as though he was sure Ben was leaving out some details.

Another week went by, and Ben’s dreams of getting out of Richmond were getting closer and closer to being a reality. He and Martin were supposed to get their next assignment in a week at the most, and Ben was feeling a little conflicted. He liked this job a lot, but moving from town to town to town didn’t really have the appeal it used to. He still missed Pawnee, the closest thing he had had to a home since Partridge, well since Partridge pre-Ice Town. Partridge post-Ice Town was mean and violent and definitely not home. But he didn’t have a job in Pawnee, and that was the problem.

Since it was a Friday, the city manager invited Ben and Martin out for a drink, and they both accepted.

No sooner had the three men sat down at the bar that Ben’s phone rang. It was Leslie.

Ben stood up, grinning at his phone. “I’ve got to take this. I’ll be right back.” He answered the call as he exited the building.

“Hey, what’s up?” he asked immediately.

“Ben! I’m so glad you answered.” Leslie sounded nervous, worried, and a little bit excited.

Ben was concerned. “What’s going on?”

“Well, I just stole a painting,” Leslie said as though she couldn’t quite believe what she was saying.

Ben wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “Um… what?”

Leslie, as usual, launched into an explanation. “You remember I told you about that art show we were having?”

“Uh huh…”

“Well, Jerry submitted this amazing painting of the centaur goddess Diaphena, but in the painting she’s half-naked, so Marcia Langman – you know Marcia Langman?” Leslie paused again for him to answer.

“I know who she is, yes…” Ben answered, still not sure exactly what was going on.

“Well, she came in and demanded we destroy the painting, since it was supposed to go up in a government building,” Leslie continued, “and so we decided to take it to the Pawnee Public Arts Commission so they could decide what to do, and they voted to have it destroyed. And then I ran away from Marcia with the painting, and now I’m hiding at April and Andy’s.”

“Wait, why do you care so much about _Jerry’s_ painting?” Ben asked, confused.

Leslie paused for a moment. “Diaphena is kind of… me. Jerry accidentally painted me as the half-naked centaur goddess.”

Ben could only open his mouth in surprise. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Leslie replied, her tone almost laughing. “And there’s a little fat cherub baby in the corner that looks like Tom. It’s a pretty great painting.”

“I’d bet,” Ben responded distractedly, trying not to think about Leslie as a half-naked centaur goddess. That was _not_ a road he needed to go down.

“But I’m pretty sure any minute that Chris is going to call me and make me bring back the painting,” Leslie said, discouraged. “I just really wish I could keep it. It means a lot to me.”

“Hey,” Ben said comfortingly, not liking the sadness he could hear in his friend’s voice. “If I know Leslie Knope, and I do, she’ll figure out a way to go around Marcia Langman and stop her from destroying that painting.”

“Wait, I might have an idea…” Leslie stopped. “Crap, that’s Chris calling me. I guess I’ve got to turn myself in. Thanks for everything, Ben.”

“Of course,” Ben replied softly. “Let me know how everything turns out.”

“I will. Bye!” Leslie hung up quickly, presumably to take Chris’s call.

Ben stood outside for a moment, staring out into the near darkness, thinking about Leslie, far away. Leslie who had called him first as she tried to hide with her stolen painting. Ben missed those little, silly, weird adventures that only ever seemed to happen in Pawnee. He missed home.

Finally he sighed and made his way back inside to join his partner and the city manager.

“That your friend from Pawnee?” Martin asked as Ben sat down beside him.

Ben looked at him, confused. “Yeah, it was. How’d you know?”

Martin smiled knowingly. “You always get this huge smile on your face when you hear from her.  She emailed you a couple days ago, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone look so happy staring at their computer screen.”

Ben grinned sheepishly and ordered a drink. If even Martin knew that Ben’s feelings for Leslie went beyond just friendship, he could scarcely imagine what Leslie herself knew. But she had been the one who called him, so none of it mattered. Leslie still wanted to be friends, and that was all Ben cared about.

By the following Wednesday, Martin and Ben had wrapped everything up in Richmond, and the pair of state auditors had said their goodbyes, Ben avoiding Bridgette Evans as he had done since that awkward day two weeks before, and gone out to get burgers in celebration. Halfway through dinner, Martin had gotten a phone call from their boss back in Indianapolis telling them that they had done a great job and that they had off until Sunday when he wanted them back in Indianapolis so they could report to their next assignment in Marion, a city slightly smaller than Richmond, but further northwest. Ben’s heart sank at the assignment. He had been hoping for a city in Southern Indiana where weekend trips to Pawnee would have been a possibility. Marion left him about the same distance from his friends that he had been in Richmond, which put him in the same predicament that he had been in for the last almost five weeks.

Martin had accepted the new assignment immediately and then had looked across the table at Ben. “You up for coming to Marion?”

Ben sighed. He had no job in Pawnee. It felt like home, but he had no house. All he had were friends. They were pretty great friends, one of them in particular, but he couldn’t give up his job just for them. It wouldn’t make sense. “I’m in,” he replied, the words sounding like a death sentence.

Martin grinned at him and directed his conversation back to the phone. “Ben’s in too. We’ll be there Sunday.” He paused, listening to their boss on the other end. “No problem. See you then. Have a good night.”

Martin put down the phone, clearly pleased. “It’ll be great to get out of here. You ever been to Marion? I’ve heard it’s pretty nice.”

Ben shook his head. “We’ll see.”

“Any big plans for your three days off?” Martin asked curiously. “I’ve got some friends to see in Indianapolis.”

Ben hadn’t thought about it, but now that Martin mentioned it… He didn’t have anyone he really wanted to see in Indianapolis, but he _did_ have some people he wanted to see somewhere else.

“I think I might head down to Pawnee, actually,” Ben said slowly.

Martin nodded. “That’s what I thought.”

Ben smiled to himself. A surprise visit back to his new hometown was exactly what he needed. Three days with Leslie Knope…

Ben felt happier than he had in weeks.


	3. Three Days

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been back in school for a week now, so updating this is getting harder and harder. It's still going to happen though, because writing this is one of the only things that's actually keeping me sane right now. Thanks so much for reading and for leaving comments! You all are lovely!

The next morning, Ben woke up before his alarm, which he had set for seven and quickly showered, got dressed, and threw the rest of his stuff in one of the bags which he had almost completely packed the night before.

He and Martin had driven to Richmond together, so Ben had to wait for his partner to get up and ready before they could head out. Ben needed to drop Martin off in Indianapolis, which wasn’t out of the way, but Ben was still anxious to get to Pawnee as quickly as possible. If Martin hadn’t been with him, Ben might have even left the night before.

The pair pulled out of the parking lot around 7:45 after stopping for coffee the hotel lobby. Ben kept drumming his fingers on the steering wheel nervously, which he didn’t actually notice until Martin started laughing at him from the passenger seat. 

The pair didn’t speak much during the trip, both of them pretty tired from their five weeks of work. Ben made polite conversation with his partner about his plans in Indianapolis, and Martin casually asked him about Pawnee, but aside from these brief exchanges, the ride was mostly silent.

It was a little past nine when Ben pulled up to the Indianapolis City Hall where Martin’s car had been sitting in the parking garage for the past five weeks.

“Have fun in Pawnee,” Martin said, grinning, as he grabbed his bags from the trunk of Ben’s Saturn. “See you Sunday.”

Ben offered his partner a wave and a smile and then headed off. Pawnee was about an hour and a half from Indianapolis, and Ben was starting to get really excited. He counted down the miles to Pawnee, his smile growing wider and wider as he neared the town, and by the time he made it to Bloomington, just over a half hour out, Ben was already planning exactly what he was going to do once he arrived. He had to go to city hall to find Leslie first. It had been too long since he had seen her beautiful face in person, and his minutes with her, and with the rest of his friends, were limited, so he knew he had to make them count.

Finally, Ben pulled off the highway and drove into Pawnee. He passed Sweetums and Kernston’s billboards and the large sign advertising the Pawnee Super Suites Motel. It had been a terrible motel, admittedly, but Ben beamed at site of it. He was really here.

Ben pulled into the city hall parking lot and left his car in the visitor section before almost running inside. He crept quickly past the city manager’s office, not wanting to be caught by Chris. Ben, of course, wanted to see his former partner and closest friend, but he knew if Chris found him he wouldn’t get away for at least an hour, and Ben just needed to see Leslie.

He made it down the hallway without being seen by Chris or by Andy at the shoeshine stand down a different corridor, and then he found himself standing in front of the open double doors of the Parks Department. Ben’s smile grew even wider. Walking into the Parks Department felt like coming home, and, for the first time in weeks, Ben felt completely and totally happy.

He stepped into the office and found the main area empty. Leslie’s voice, however, was drifting out from the open door of the conference room. Ben grinned somehow even wider as he slowly approached the door.

Ron was at the far end of the table staring intently at what looked like a crossword puzzle. April and Donna had their backs to Ben, and neither Tom nor Jerry on the other side of the table had noticed him. Tom was staring at his phone, clearly not paying attention to anything going on in the meeting, and Jerry had apparently gotten lost and was rifling through his binder trying to catch up.

And then there was Leslie.

She was intently focused on a presentation, which Ben quickly gathered had something to do with the Pawnee raccoon problem, and she was beautiful. Ben’s breath caught in his throat at the sight of her. Five weeks without her had been too long. _Way_ too long. Instantly he had the urge to pull her into his arms and kiss that adorable face for the rest of his time in Pawnee, but he quickly shouted that thought down. He was only here for three days. Nothing could happen. But he was definitely spending as much time with her as possible; he didn’t see any problem with _that_.

As Ben neared the door, April suddenly turned around as though she had sensed someone moving behind her. Her mouth fell open instantly, and Ben gave himself a mental high five for surprising the least likely to be surprised member of the Parks Department.

Seeing April staring out the door, Donna, Tom, and Jerry all turned and followed her gaze.

“What!” Donna exclaimed, not unhappily, upon seeing him, and Tom added an excited “Benihana!”

The words of her fellow employees caused Leslie to turn to the doorway too.

As she saw him, her eyes lit up and a grin immediately spread itself across her face. Her mouth opened speechlessly, as she tried to form words. “Oh my God. Ben…” Leslie breathed out finally. “What…?”

Ben finally stepped into the conference room, his grin matching Leslie’s. “I have three days off before my next assignment, so I figured I’d spend them back here with you guys.” He kept his eyes locked on Leslie as he spoke, silently telling her that she was the main reason he had come back.

“Oh my God,” Leslie repeated quietly, seeming to not quite believe he was here. Then, as though suddenly remembering that she could move, she sprung toward Ben and wrapped her arms tightly around him. “It’s so amazing to see you,” she said softly into his shoulder. 

“It’s great to see you too,” Ben replied, melting into Leslie’s embrace. This was all he needed in the world. He was in Pawnee. He had his arms aroundLeslie Knope. This was everything. 

A not-so-subtle cough from Donna broke he and Leslie apart, but Leslie didn’t look embarrassed by it in the least. Her smile had actually grown even wider, and Ben could see her eyes flashing through questions she had for him.

Ben turned to the rest of the department. “So, how are you guys?”

Almost immediately, everyone stood up to properly greet him. Donna hugged him tighter than he would have expected from her, and the smile on her face as she welcomed him back was completely genuine. Tom and Jerry each hugged him too, both clearly pleased that Ben had returned. Ron shook his hand with a curt nod, and even April couldn’t hide her smile, though she insisted that she hated him and then told him that she wanted him to go back to “anywhere but here.” 

Ben couldn’t believe that he had only been friends with these people for six months. They all, somehow, really cared about him after just that short amount of time. Ben was really touched. 

His eyes unconsciously drifted back to Leslie, who was still smiling hugely at him. Ben could almost see questions ready to spill out of her, but she, instead, took a deep breath and asked only one thing. “You want to go catch up after I finish this?”

Ben nodded, smiling. “Yeah, definitely.” Ben was aware that he sounded slightly breathless, but he couldn’t care less. There was nowhere else in the world he would have rather been than in that conference room with Leslie Knope.

Leslie motioned for everyone to return to their seats, and Ben quickly pulled a chair over to the wall to he could sit and wait.

Despite the seriousness of the topic Leslie was discussing – raccoons, of course, being a major Pawnee issue – the smile never left Leslie’s face, and Ben’s never left his. Every so often they locked eyes with each other, and, in those moments, Ben felt like everything made sense. He felt like he was home.

Finally the meeting ended, and everyone started asking Ben how he was and how Richmond had been.

Ben offered brief, but not rude, answers, wanting to talk to his other friends, but wanting to spend time with Leslie more.

Leslie finally asked the rest of her department to get back to work, adding that they would all see Ben later.

So he was left in the conference room with just Leslie. She glanced at the clock. “It’s a little early for lunch, but are you hungry? 

Ben suddenly realized that it was nearing eleven and that he hadn’t actually eaten that morning, since he had been so excited about getting to Pawnee. “Honestly, I’m starving,” he said, still grinning.

“Anywhere you want to go in particular?” Leslie asked pointedly.

Ben laughed, knowing exactly what she wanted him to say. “I would _love_ to go to JJ’s.”

“Yay!” Leslie exclaimed, almost bouncing. “Let me get my jacket.”

She hurried into her office and left Ben out in the central area to wait for her.

Donna looked at him with her eyebrows raised as though to ask if something was going on between him and Leslie, but Ben ignored her.

Almost immediately, Leslie returned with her jacket on and her purse in hand. “We’ll see you guys later,” she called to her coworkers and then grabbed Ben’s arm and almost pulled him out of the department.

“Wait,” Ben said, stopping his friend in the hall just outside the department. “I haven’t seen Chris yet, and I know he’ll get really excited when he finds out I’m here and keep me in his office forever, so we have to sneak past there.”

Leslie grinned at him. “Well, you know, I’m great at being sneaky.”

Ben glanced sideways at her, his eyebrows raised, silently reminding her of the night some four months before when she had not-so-sneakily tried to get Chris to reconsider the Parks budget immediately after the Pawnee government shutdown had ended.

Finally she started laughing. “Okay, okay, I’m bad at being sneaky, but this isn’t that hard!”

Ben laughed too, and the pair began to walk down the hallway. “Oh! Wait! I should say hi to Andy quick,” Ben remembered as he and Leslie passed the hallway where the shoeshine was located. 

They turned and made a detour to the stand.

“BEN!” A loud shout met them as they approached. Andy ran toward him, followed by April who had apparently slipped out of the Parks Department as everyone back in the office had talked to Ben. The other man picked Ben up in a giant bear hug. “April told me you were back,” Andy almost shouted, still holding Ben off the ground, “and I wasn’t a hundred percent sure she was telling the truth, but she was!”

“It’s good to see you too, Andy,” Ben said, both happy and a little scared. “But can you put me down?”

“Oh, yeah, sure.” Andy set Ben back on the ground, a huge puppy-dog grin spreading across his face. “It’s so great to see you! How long are you here for?”

“Three days,” Ben replied, suddenly conscious of the limited amount of time he had. “I’ll be back later, and we can talk or whatever. Leslie and I are heading to JJ’s.” He glanced over at his friend, who apparently had been laughing at Andy’s greeting of Ben. He rolled his eyes at her sarcastically and then waved to April and still-excited Andy before heading to the exit, Leslie right beside him.

“I hope Chris didn’t hear Andy yelling,” Ben whispered to Leslie as they approached the city manager’s office.

They passed the door cautiously, and then, after making it by without being spotted by Chris Traeger, the pair bolted out of city hall. 

“My car?” Ben asked, laughing about their quick getaway, eager to spend as much time with Leslie as possible.

Leslie nodded and then pulled out her phone. “Wait, give me one sec. I have to call Ann.”

Ben narrowed his eyes, slightly confused, but then moved to wait outside his Saturn a little ways from Leslie to give her some privacy.

“Ann, hey it’s Leslie,” he heard his friend say into the phone. He knew he shouldn’t listen, but Leslie was not the quietest of speakers. “I can’t do lunch today.” There was a pause. “No, nothing like that. Actually Ben came back!” Another pause. “No, just to visit for a few days before he goes to his next town.” Ben watched from the corner of his eye as Leslie’s smile grew sad. “Yeah, of course I’ll ask, but I don’t think it’s going to change anything.” Leslie’s face brightened slightly. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m just really happy he’s here.” 

Ben looked away from his friend, his smile returning to his face. He was really happy he was here too.

“Okay, I will,” Leslie said into the phone brightly. “We’ll talk later. Bye Ann!” Leslie put her phone back in her pocket and came over to join Ben.

“Ann says hi and welcome back!” Leslie said happily as she hopped in the passenger seat.

“Am I messing with your lunch plans?” Ben asked, slightly worried, as he started the car. 

Leslie brushed off his concerns. “Ann was just going to stop by city hall so we could eat in the courtyard, nothing big. I haven’t seen you in over a month; I think I’m allowed to cancel.”

Ben glanced over at her and smiled. At this time the day before, the idea that he would be back in Pawnee going to JJ’s Diner with Leslie Knope would have been completely ludicrous, but here he was.

“So you came from Richmond this morning?” Leslie asked curiously. 

Ben nodded, knowing this question would be the first of many. “I did. We left around 7:45. I wanted to leave earlier than that, but Martin didn’t need to get back to Indy too urgently.”

He saw Leslie grin slightly out of the corner of his eye. “And _you_ needed to get somewhere urgently?”

Ben smiled softly and turned to Leslie as much as he could while driving down Pawnee’s main road. “I really _really_ missed Pawnee.” As it had when the two of them said goodbye five weeks before, Pawnee didn’t just mean Pawnee. It really meant one person in particular in Pawnee.

Leslie caught his gaze and held it until Ben had to pull his eyes away and focus on the road. 

“So, um, how’s Martin?” Leslie asked after a brief silence.

“He’s good,” Ben replied, smiling to himself that Leslie cared about him enough to ask him about someone she didn’t even know, just because the other man worked with Ben. “He was excited to get out of Richmond and move on.”

“Oh yeah!” Leslie exclaimed, apparently just remembering something. “Moving on! Where are you guys headed next?”

“Marion,” Ben replied evenly. 

“Oh,” Leslie said, her voice losing all its excitement. “I was hoping you might end up down closer to Pawnee,” she added quietly.

Ben glanced back at her. “Yeah, that’s what I was hoping too.”

Neither one said anything as Ben pulled his car into the familiar JJ’s parking lot.

Ben put the sadness of him not working in a city near Pawnee behind him as he got out of the car and stared up at the sign. “I’m so glad to be back here,” Ben said contentedly. 

“JJ’ll be happy to see you,” Leslie replied, grabbing his arm again to get him to move inside to the waffles and whipped cream faster.

JJ looked out from the kitchen as Leslie walked in. “Leslie! I’ll have your waffles out in a minute.” He beamed at her. 

“Thanks JJ,” Leslie replied, smiling back. 

“Wait,” the man added, surprised. “Is that Ben Wyatt?" 

Ben grinned at the other man. “Hey JJ! I’m back in Pawnee for a couple of days to visit.” Ben gestured his shoulder in Leslie’s direction.

JJ nodded, still smiling. “Nice to see you again.” He turned back to the kitchen to get Leslie her waffles.

Ben glanced over at Leslie who was smiling hugely at him. Ben shook his head. “I’ve missed this place even more than I though I did.”

A waitress sat them at Leslie’s favorite booth and quickly took Ben’s order, his stomach beginning to audibly growl since he hadn’t eaten all morning. JJ brought out Leslie’s waffles, smothered, as usual, in whipped cream. He clapped Ben on the back and told the pair to enjoy their breakfasts before he returned to the kitchen.

With a mountain of waffles and whipped cream in front of her, Leslie returned to their conversation. “So, Marion.” 

Ben nodded, sighing. “Hopefully it won’t be too bad.” 

Leslie frowned as she bit into a waffle, but when she looked back up at him she had adopted some sort of half-false cheerfulness. “Well, let’s not think about that.” She quickly changed the subject. “How were your last few days in Richmond? Run into your friend Ms. Evans again?” Leslie raised her eyebrows at him mockingly. 

Ben laughed genuinely. “No, thank God. I stayed away from her as much as I possibly could. I glimpsed her from a distance a couple times, and she waved me down once to get me to talk to her, but I kind of just ran away instead.” Ben grinned at his friend sheepishly.

“You have to learn to deal with these things Ben!” Leslie reprimanded, her words losing any possible seriousness as she laughed uproariously at him. “I wish I would have been able to meet this woman in person. But I’m glad you called me that day she asked you out. I really needed to hear about that.” Leslie’s words were simultaneously joking and serious, and Ben couldn’t help but smile even wider at her.

“Well, I’m glad you called me that day you stole the painting,” Ben replied, smirking. “Definitely one of the more entertaining phone calls I’ve received in my life.” 

“I’m glad my problem amused you, Benjamin,” Leslie said with mock-offense until she gave up and smiled at him. 

Ben shook his head, laughing as the waitress arrived with his food. He grinned excitedly at the plates she set down in front of him. He was really hungry, and this was JJ’s diner: best food in Indiana.

“Tell me everything about you and the Parks Department that you haven’t told me already,” Ben said genuinely as he picked up a piece of bacon. “I hate not knowing what’s going on down here." 

Leslie was happy to comply with his request. She gave him all the details of the programs the department was working on, lots of budget specifics about how well the town was doing since the Harvest Festival, and several play-by-play reenactments of conversations she had had over the past five weeks with various Pawnee personalities and with her fellow Parks employees, all interspersed with questions for Ben about Richmond and the rest of his life.

Ben found himself almost crying with laughter, and, as he took a bite of his eggs after a particularly entertaining portrayal of Chris from Leslie, he found that they had gotten cold. He had evidently been so engrossed in Leslie that he had forgotten about his food. Ben didn’t care in the slightest.

“I miss this so much,” he said longingly. “All the weird Pawnee stuff, Chris, the whole Parks Department,” _you,_ he added in his head.

“Then why don’t you stay,” Leslie blurted out immediately.

Ben imagined it for a second. Him living in Pawnee with all his great new friends. Working with Chris again, back in city hall. Going to JJ’s with Leslie. Or going anywhere with Leslie. Actually, just getting to finally date Leslie because there was really nothing in the world he wanted more at this point than to be with her. It all sounded wonderful. Really, _really_ wonderful. But it couldn’t happen.

“I already said I’d go to Marion,” he answered finally, his face downcast, “and it’s not like I actually have a job or even a place to live here. I mean I’d love to stay, you know I’d love to stay.” He looked up at his friend imploringly. “But I can’t, Leslie. I’m sorry.”

Leslie looked down into her lap, her previously waffle-filled plate somehow completely clear despite the fact that she had been doing most of the talking for the past hour.

Finally she sighed and looked up. “Well, if you’re only here until Sunday morning then we’re doing as much stuff together as we can until then, okay?”

Ben’s smile returned to his face. “That sounds perfect.” 

Leslie looked up to get the attention of the waitress. “Two waffles to go, please, Marta.” 

The other woman nodded and disappeared, returning a moment later with a styrofoam box that had apparently been already prepared just for Leslie. 

Ben pulled out his wallet to pay for the meal, but Leslie reached over and stopped him.

“You’re only here for three days; I’m paying.” She looked at him seriously, as though daring him to challenge her.

Ben raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, but I pay the next time we come here.”

Leslie half smiled at him. “Deal." 

After Leslie paid the bill, the pair left the diner and returned to Ben’s car.

“So anything specific you want to do these next three days?” Leslie said, unearthing a pad of paper from her purse and staring at him expectantly, a pen in her hand poised to write down anything Ben said.

Ben almost laughed at how seriously Leslie took everything. That had been so annoying for him back when he was just some state auditor in a weird town who had to deal with an overly exuberant Parks employee, but now that Leslie had become one of his closest friends and Pawnee had become the place he had felt the most at home in a long time, Ben loved it.

“All I really wanted to do was see you,” he answered honestly, smiling at her almost shyly as he drove back to city hall. “And eat at JJ’s, obviously,” he added to take away from the seriousness of what he had just said.

Leslie smiled into her lap at Ben’s words. “Well, I’m glad you did.”

There was an almost tense silence for a few moments until Ben spoke again. “I do want to go see Chris once we get back though.”

Leslie nodded, back to business again. “Of course. But you guys should stop back in the Parks Department later.”

Ben grinned. “Absolutely. And I know it’s a Thursday, but I’d love to get dinner with everyone, too. It’s been so long since I’ve actually talked to any of the rest of those guys. I mean we emailed a bit, but that’s not really the same, you know?”

Leslie smiled back at him, nodding as she took notes. “Yeah, I know. I’ll get everyone together, no problem. And we could go out for drinks tomorrow! It’s been a while since we all hung out at the Snakehole.”

Ben could see the gears turning in Leslie’s mind as launched into planning mode.

“And then Saturday…” Leslie was talking far more to herself than to Ben as she frantically scribbled on the pad in her lap. Every so often Ben would hear a random phrase like “ask Ann” or “parks maintenance,” but Ben had completely lost his friend. 

When he pulled into the city hall parking lot, Leslie finally emerged from her planning, beaming at him as she exited the car. “These are going to be the best three days ever!” she called to him, sprinting away. “Come find me after you see Chris!” She entered city hall and disappeared behind the double doors.

Ben stared after her for a moment, motionless. He had forgotten some of the quirks that came with Leslie’s boundless energy. Finally he shook his head, smiling at the ground. This was already the best day he had had in weeks, and it wasn’t even one o’clock yet.

Ben slipped quietly into city hall and immediately turned into the city manager’s office.

The assistant city manager was away from his desk, and the door to the city manager’s office was standing open slightly. Ben wondered for a moment if his friend was actually inside, but then he heard a faint counting coming from behind the door.

“27, 28, 29, 30…”

Ben peaked through the transparent window and saw what he had expected, Chris doing pull-ups behind his desk, staring straight ahead in deep concentration.

Ben smiled and then pushed the door open without knocking.

Chris looked up at the sound and then immediately dropped to the ground, his mouth falling open. “Ben Wyatt! What are you _doing_ here?” He walked around in front of his desk, still in shock. “You didn’t say you were coming! This is _literally_ the greatest surprise I’ve ever received!”

Without waiting for Ben to respond, Chris pulled him into a hug and clapped him on the back enthusiastically.

“I’ve missed you too, Chris,” Ben said, slightly uncomfortable as the hug went on a bit longer than protocol allowed.

Chris finally released him and instead just smiled widely at him. “Really, what _are_ you doing here?”

“Martin and I have three days off between assignments, so I figured I’d come down to visit for a few days,” Ben explained.

“It means so much that you wanted to spend your time off with me,” Chris said emotionally. “You have to tell me everything about Richmond. And everything about where you’re going next! There is literally _nothing_ I would rather do than catch up with you, my best friend.”

Ben smiled at Chris. His former auditing partner’s manner sometimes wore Ben a little thin, but Ben couldn’t deny that he really missed Chris’s happiness and excitement. Martin was great, but he wasn’t Chris.

Chris froze as though he had just remembered something. “Wait! You have to go see Leslie and the rest of the Parks Department! They’ll be so excited that you’re back!" 

Ben held out his hand to stop Chris before the other man dragged him through city hall. “I’ve actually already seen them. Leslie and I just got back from lunch at JJ’s.”

“Oh,” Chris said, slightly subdued.

Ben hurried to explain himself. “I wanted to make sure that you and I had a full block of time to catch up, you know? Plus I hadn’t eaten anything today, so JJ’s seemed like a good idea, and you can’t go to JJ’s without Leslie.” That wasn’t _exactly_ why Ben had gone to the Parks Department first, of course, but it was kind of close to the truth and, more than that, it was definitely believable.

Chris’s expression brightened immediately. “Of course! Always thinking ahead! Typical Ben Wyatt!” Chris pointed at Ben’s chest characteristically. “Now,” he gestured at the table on the other side of his office, “sit down and tell me _everything_ about your life.”

Two hours later, Ben had filled Chris in on “everything” that had happened over the past five weeks and answered the _almost_ literally thousands of questions his old friend had put to him, so Ben excused himself from Chris’s office to head back to the Parks Department with a promise to stop by and see his friend before the end of the day so they could make plans to hang out again while Ben was still in town 

Ben took the long way to the Parks Department, intentionally passing the shoeshine stand, but finding Andy away from his post, presumably in the department where Ben was heading 

Ben had barely made it two steps through the door to the Parks Department when Leslie raced out of her office, already speaking rapidly 

“I’ve drawn up a whole itinerary,” she said, brandishing a sheet of paper from the pad she had been writing in earlier in front of his face. “We’re all getting dinner tonight - I’ve already emailed Chris and Ann to have them come too - and then tomorrow you can come help me, Tom, and April with some park maintenance, and then we’ll go to the Snakehole after work. Saturday we’re going to JJ’s for breakfast again, and then the afternoon’s free for whatever you want.” Leslie finally stopped to take a breath.

Ben tried to absorb all the information that he had just been given as he took the piece of paper from Leslie and looked down through the itinerary. His friend had provided a list of fun Pawnee activity ideas for Saturday afternoon along with an hour-by-hour guide to the exact park maintenance Leslie, Tom, and April had to do the next day. He could see Donna and Tom laughing by Donna's desk as Andy stared curiously at Ben and Leslie past April.

“Is all that okay?” Leslie asked hesitantly when Ben hadn’t answered for a few moments. Ben knew that Leslie normally just assumed that everything she suggested was good, but he could tell she was a little nervous that he wasn’t as excited about the next few days as she was.

Ben had to smile as he looked up from the list to meet her eyes. “It’s all great, Leslie. You know I’m just glad to see you guys.”

Leslie’s worried expression immediately became a happy one. “Great!” She glanced at the clock. “Well, you can hang around until five if you want, or, you know, whatever.”

Ben thought for a moment. “I think I’ll go check into the motel now, and I’ll meet you guys back here before five. Okay?”

“Perfect!” Leslie beamed at him. “See you later then!”

Ben waved to the rest of the department and left, but just as he moved away from the doors he heard Donna’s voice coming from back in the office.

“So, Leslie, you and Ben.”

Ben froze where he was, just out of sight, but close enough that he could still hear what was happening inside the department.

“What about me and Ben?” Leslie replied just slightly too quickly.

“You _like_ him,” Donna stated matter-of-factly.

“Leslie likes _Ben_?” Andy almost shouted. Ben could imagine the other man’s eyes widening as a huge goofy grin spread across his face. 

“What! No!” Leslie exclaimed, but her denial was not the usual emphatic, genuine Leslie Knope one that Ben knew.

“Neither one of you has stopped smiling since he got here!” Donna argued seriously.

“So?” Leslie sounded defensive. “We’re just two friends who haven’t seen each other in a while that are happy to be back together. I mean not together, but with each other, like in the same place, you know what I mean!” She was clearly getting flustered.

Tom’s voice entered the conversation. “You emailed him _every day_ when he was gone! That means something!”

“Not _every_ day,” Leslie mumbled under her breath so quietly that Ben could barely hear her.

“Whatever, girl,” Donna said with finality. “He likes you, and you like him. I know these things. But you just have to deal with this yourself.”

The usual relative quiet of the Parks Department returned, and Ben finally moved away from the wall outside the office. He was apparently being so obvious about how much he liked Leslie that the rest of his friends knew, not that he really cared. What he was interested in was Leslie getting defensive and flustered about everything. _That means she likes me too, right?_ Ben thought quickly before realizing that none of it mattered. As he had reminded himself over and over, he was only in Pawnee for three days. He couldn’t do anything with Leslie because he was leaving for Indianapolis and then Marion on Sunday morning. Nothing could happen between them. _Nothing._

Ben sighed. Maybe coming to Pawnee hadn’t been such a good idea.

Ben suddenly realized that his hand was closed around something. He glanced down and found the sheet of paper listing all of the activities Leslie had planned for him for the next few days. The heading, which he hadn’t noticed before, as he had been too caught up in Leslie’s extensive itinerary, read “BEN’S BEST THREE DAYS EVER: A PAWNEE EXTRAVAGANZA”.

Ben had to smile to himself. There was no way that coming back to Pawnee had been a bad idea. It actually may have been the best idea Ben had ever had.


	4. A Pawnee Extravaganza

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to Pawnee: The Greatest Town in America by Leslie Knope for all the information I used in this chapter.

Ben arrived at the Super Suites Motel and brought in his overnight bag, leaving the suitcase containing the majority of his clothes in the trunk of his car, since he was only staying in Pawnee for three nights. 

The receptionist waved to him eagerly as he walked in. “Ben Wyatt! Good to see you again!” She glanced down at a book in front of her. “I can give you your old room if you’d like.”

Ben smiled to himself. “Yeah, that’d be great. Thanks, Linda.”

The woman turned and grabbed a key from a shelf behind her. “Here you go,” she said, handing it to him. “And I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know that as of two days ago, we are bed-bug free at the Pawnee Super Suites!”

Ben grimaced. “I didn’t know there were ever any bed-bugs…”

Linda smiled apologetically. “We had a problem a couple weeks ago, but, don’t worry! It’s all clear! How many nights will you be staying?" 

Ben almost couldn’t believe he had missed this place. Almost.

After putting his things in the room that he had previously lived in for six months, Ben left the motel to head back to the Parks Department. 

He ended up spending the rest of the day in Leslie’s office talking to her and watching her work, until he noticed Tom giving him a weird look, at which point Ben realized that he had been staring at Leslie with a dopey grin on his face for at least fifteen straight minutes. Ben decided it might be better if he talked to Tom instead.

Leslie insisted that she give him a ride to the restaurant so she could finish explaining the details of the most recent raccoon analysis that she had started telling him about back in the office. Ben could tell that she was just looking for an excuse to spend more time with him, but he wasn’t going to call her out on that. If she hadn’t said anything about raccoons, he would have made up something about Richmond.

Dinner itself was really great, and Ben found himself laughing harder than he had since the last time he had been in Pawnee.

Ann gave him a huge hug and welcomed him back to town, adding in a low voice that Leslie had missed him like crazy and that she hadn’t heard Leslie so happy since before he had left. A small smile crept up on his face at Ann’s words, and he could have sworn he saw Ann roll her eyes and shake her head at him before she took her seat on the other side of Leslie, Leslie having saved the seats on either side of her for Ben and Ann specifically. 

Chris was sitting on Ben’s other side, and he was as happy and excited as he ever was, repeating multiple times throughout the meal that having Ben back in Pawnee was _literally_ the greatest thing to ever happen to him, or to anyone.

Ron offered few details about his life, but his so-called “turf-and-turf” was eaten quickly, so Ben assumed he was enjoying himself. Andy was still really excited that Ben was around again, and April was much more attentive to conversation than she normally would have been, actually listening as Ben told stories of his encounters with the employees of the Richmond Parks Department. Ben had to try really hard not to laugh at the faces Leslie made every time he mentioned Bridgette Evans.

Jerry filled Ben in on how his family was doing, much to the annoyance of the entire party, who really didn’t care, and Tom had plenty to talk about, as always, even though his stories were punctuated with jabs at Ben for being a nerd. Donna didn’t share too much, but she kept looking knowingly between Ben and Leslie, which Ben knew should have bothered him or at least made him feel a little uncomfortable, but somehow it just made him smile more.

Ben had hung out after work with Martin and various Richmond government employees numerous times over the course of his stay in the other town, but he had almost forgotten what it was like to get dinner with real friends who actually wanted to know what he had to say (even if they called him a nerd afterward) and who he genuinely cared about. Ben was having such a great time.

Eventually the party broke up, with Leslie reminding Tom and April numerous times that their fun day of park maintenance started at 9AM sharp at Ramsett Park.

When April started complaining about how stupid it was going to be, Andy volunteered to come too, which ended April’s protests.

“Sorry about messing with you and Leslie’s lunch plans,” Ben said to Ann as Leslie was occupied with Tom, April, and Andy.

Ann shook her head. “She hasn’t seen you in five weeks; she can cancel anything she wants for that.” She offered him a half smile. “I was being serious when I said this is the happiest she’s been since you left. Not that she’s been sad or anything,” Ann quickly clarified, “she’s just been a little bit distant, almost preoccupied. She missed you.”

Ben couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face. “Well, I missed her too.” Ben decided that adding that this was the happiest that _he’d_ been since he had left was a little too cheesy and made his feelings for Leslie a little too obvious, so he decided to leave that comment unsaid.

As they exited the restaurant, Leslie loudly instructed everyone to make sure they didn’t have plans the next night because they were going to the Snakehole, and it was going to be awesome. Tom, naturally, assisted in the promotion, adding that they would all have to go back to the club again in a couple weeks because he had a big surprise for them. 

Ben wasn’t sure he wanted to know what Tom’s “big surprise” was going to be. _I guess that’s one good thing that can come from me not staying in Pawnee,_ Ben thought to himself, _I won’t be around for whatever crazy thing Tom’s planning._ Somehow that thought didn’t make him as happy as it should have.

Everyone went their separate ways, and Ben found himself alone with Leslie, since she had driven them to the restaurant.

“You have a good time?” Leslie asked, almost completely shrouded in darkness as they walked across the parking lot. Ben could just barely make out the sparkle of laughter in her eyes from the light of a streetlamp above them.

Ben nudged her shoulder with his playfully. “Today’s been the best day I’ve had in weeks.”

“How many weeks?” Leslie asked, nudging him back.

Ben grinned. “About five, I’d say.”

“That’s what I thought.” Leslie smiled and unlocked her car, Ben moving to the passenger side.

Neither one of them spoke on the trip back to city hall. Ben was overly conscious of the fact that if he moved his hand that was resting on his leg just slightly to the left it would meet Leslie’s sitting on the center console.

Leslie parked her car beside Ben’s in the city hall visitor’s lot and then turned to look at him. “So, I’ll see you tomorrow morning?”

“9AM Ramsett Park,” Ben affirmed, nodding as he unbuckled his seat belt. “I’ll see you then.” Ben opened his door to exit the car, but Leslie’s hand on his arm stopped him. He turned around and sat back down. “What?”

Leslie half smiled at him for a moment. “I just wanted to say that I’m really _really_ glad you came back.”

Ben grinned back at her. “Me too.”

Ben got out of the car again and called goodbye to his friend before he shut the door behind him.

With one final wave, Leslie pulled out of the parking lot, and Ben started his car.

A few hours later, after catching up on several TV shows, among other things that he knew Tom and the rest of his friends would have teased him mercilessly about, Ben lay in his bed staring up at the ceiling. He smiled to himself. This had been the greatest day ever, and he still had two more of them to look forward to. He wondered to himself how had he had gotten this lucky, but he already knew the answer: it was Leslie; it was all Leslie. 

Ben met Leslie, Tom, April, and Andy at Ramsett Park at 9AM the next morning, right on time. Or, more accurately, he met Leslie at 9AM and the other three straggled in 10 minutes later. Leslie, of course, had already been at the park for at least an hour by that point, so their friends’ late arrival wasn’t really a problem. 

The sky was clear, and the sun was shining, and Ben helped his friends plant some trees by a picnic area Leslie had apparently redone while he was away. Tom offered toneless encouragement from a safe distance as he stared at his phone, not wanting to get his suit dirty. Andy and April, on the other hand, ended up in a dirt fight that left Andy down in one of the holes Leslie had dug to plant the trees. All in all, it went just about as well as Ben had expected it to go. 

Ben was struck, as he always was, by Leslie’s hard work and diligence as she focused on planting her trees, even with all the nonsense going on around them. She just looked so happy to be doing anything to make the town a better place. Ben frowned as he realized that in just two days he would have to go back to the real world where parks deputy directors were out for their boss’s jobs and every municipal employee was at least partially dead inside.

After the trees were planted, Leslie sent Tom, April, and Andy down one trail to pick up trash, while she and Ben went down another one. 

Leslie gave Ben impromptu nature identification lessons as they came to each new tree or flower, and she told him about the time she had gone to stop some Pawnee teenagers from playing a game where they threw dog poop from trashcans at each other and how it had actually been really fun. 

Ben told Leslie about how he hadn’t even visited a single park in Richmond, since the main staff of the Parks Department there left most of that stuff to the park rangers.

Leslie looked horrified by that idea, and Ben was quick to agree with her and assure her that this was much better.

“How could you be in charge of the _Parks_ Department and not want to go to your _parks_?” Leslie asked, appalled. “Those Richmond people are bad news, Ben. Don’t go back there.”

Ben laughed. “I’m not planning on it. I’ve had more than enough of Richmond, Indiana." 

Leslie stopped for a moment, an empty bottle in one hand pausing on its way to the trash bag held in her other. She offered him a small smile. “I’m glad you didn’t feel that way about Pawnee.”

“Pawnee’s different,” Ben replied, returning Leslie’s smile. “It’s always been different.”

Ben saw Leslie’s mouth open slightly as though she wanted to reply, but she stopped and jumped away from Ben as Andy came running down the path between them with April on his back, both of them doing some sort of war cry.

“Nice to see you’re making progress,” Ben called after their retreating backs.

Leslie laughed beside him. “Come on, we should find Tom.”

As he and Leslie went in search of their friend, Ben’s phone began ringing in his pocket. He answered it without looking. 

“Hello?”

“Ben Wyatt!”

“Oh, hey Chris,” Ben said, recognizing his friend’s voice immediately.

“I have something _incredibly_ important to tell you, but I have to do it in person.” Chris somehow sounded even more excited than usual, which was saying something, since it was Chris.

“Oh, um, okay,” Ben said slowly, confused.

“Could we get lunch in town right now?” Chris asked eagerly.

Ben looked over at Leslie, who had found a massive cluster of cans on the side of the trail and was picking them up with that satisfied Leslie Knope grin that always accompanied her community service. “Well, I’m helping Leslie with parks maintenance…”

“Oh! Of course!” Chris said enthusiastically, as though parks maintenance was the most interesting thing in the world. “Do you think she could spare you for a while? It won’t be more than an hour, I promise.”

Ben moved the speaker away from his mouth so he could ask his friend. “Hey, Leslie?”

Leslie looked up at him brightly, her trash bag clattering against her leg as she turned around.

“Would it be alright if I grabbed lunch with Chris quick and then met you at the next park? He says he has something “incredibly important” to tell me.” 

“Yeah, no problem!” Leslie replied, smiling at him.

Ben directed his attention back to his phone. “Okay, Chris. I’ll see you in fifteen minutes. I assume we’re going to that sandwich place you like?”

Ben could almost hear Chris’s enormous grin on the other end of the phone. “Ben Wyatt! You remembered! And yes, that sandwich place. It is _literally_ the only restaurant in town that serves a salad that doesn’t contain candy.”

“Yeah, of course,” Ben replied, almost rolling his eyes. “See you, Chris.”

“Bye Ben!”

Ben hung up the phone and walked up the trail to catch up with Leslie who was picking up the last of the cans on the side of the trail.

“Hey, sorry about this,” Ben apologized. 

Leslie looked sideways at him. “You don’t have to be sorry!” she almost laughed. “If anything _I’ve_ been monopolizing your time. Go have fun with Chris!”

Ben shook his head at her, but he knew he had to get going, so he half-jogged down the trail back to his car. 

Fifteen minutes later, Ben walked into Bistro Desmarches, Pawnee’s first restaurant with a French-sounding name (according to Leslie), even though it was really just a sandwich place that happened to serve salad. Chris received glares from all of the restaurant’s patrons and most of the staff every time he ordered it, but it was Chris, so he always just smiled and brushed off the glares with his typical Chris Traeger attitude.

Chris was already sitting at a table, and he waved exuberantly to Ben when he walked in. 

“Hey Chris,” Ben said sitting down across from him. “So what’s up?”

“Wait,” Chris held up a hand. “Let’s order first so I don’t have to interrupt this _amazing_ announcement.” Chris motioned for the waitress to come over to their table.

Ben got a standard turkey sandwich, and Chris ordered his usual salad. Ben wasn’t sure if it was just that he hadn’t been in Pawnee in a while or if this was how things had been before, but he felt like a significantly smaller number of people were glaring at Chris for his lunch choice now than they had the last time he and Chris had gotten lunch here five or six weeks before. Apparently Chris was adapting to the town, and the town was adapting to him. Ben felt a slight pang of something resembling homesickness.

As the waitress left the table, Chris finally turned to Ben and began to explain himself. “Today, my assistant city manager came into my office and told me that he took a job in the Eagleton city government, and so, effective Monday morning, I will be missing my assistant, and I’ll need to hire someone. Would you, Ben Wyatt, like the be the new Pawnee Assistant City Manager?” 

Ben stared at Chris wordlessly. “What? Assistant City Manager? _Here_? In _Pawnee_?”

“Is that a yes?” Chris grinned at him expectantly.

Ben didn’t know what to say. His main reason for not coming back to Pawnee was his lack of a job, and suddenly the perfect one was presented in front of him. He could stay with his friends! He could stay with Leslie! He would have a great job in a wonderful city… but he couldn’t take it. He couldn’t. He had signed on to go to Marion, and he couldn’t just abandon his partner and abandon the state government. He had been there for twelve years. It just… it wouldn’t work. “I, um, Chris, I… I can’t,” he said finally.

Chris’s grin slid off his face instantly. “What?” 

Ben took a shallow breath, upset that this stupid assistant city manager had decided to wait until today to quit, instead of a few days before when Ben could have actually even thought about accepting. “I already signed on to go to Marion. I can’t just leave Martin, and I can’t quit my job on such short notice. I’ve been there for twelve years, Chris,” he tried to rationalize his opinion to his friend and to himself. “I can’t just call them two days before I’m supposed to go to my next town and tell them that I’m going to be the Pawnee Assistant City Manager! If you’d asked me a few days ago, maybe I could have said yes, but, right now, I can’t.” 

Chris’s usually ecstatic face had become the picture of depression. “That is _literally_ the saddest thing I have ever heard. I would have loved for us to work together again.” He sighed. “But I understand.”

A waitress brought over their food, and both men began to eat, a silence stretching between them.

Ben ran his hand through his hair absently as he ate his sandwich. He wanted, more than anything, to be able to say he could stay in Pawnee.   He loved this weird little town, and he loved his friends, but it just couldn’t happen.

Chis finally spoke. “If I don’t find anyone by the time you’re done in Marion, can I call you up and ask again?”

Ben’s face brightened immediately. “Absolutely. Please.” 

Some degree of a smile returned to Chris’s face at Ben’s words, and the two men began an actual conversation, Chris asking about Leslie and the day’s park maintenance.

He and Chris left the restaurant a half hour later, and Chris said he would see him at the Snakehole later. 

“Wait!” Ben called out before his friend got in his car. 

Chris stopped and turned around, curious.

“Can you not tell Leslie that you offered me this job?” Ben asked imploringly. “Or that this job is even available,” he added as an afterthought. “I just know that she’d be really upset if she found out I didn’t take it, and, if she does hear about it, I want it to be from me.” 

Chris nodded. “Understood.”

Ben drove away from the restaurant mechanically, his mind racing. How had he just turned down an offer to stay in Pawnee? This town was as close to a home as he had had in a really long time, and he was just throwing that away. He knew his reasons for not coming back were good and convincing, but he still felt lost.

Ten minutes later, Ben ended up at Lafayette Park, the only park on the Eagleton/Pawnee border and the next stop on Leslie’s itinerary.

Leslie, Tom, April, and Andy were picking up garbage in the Pawnee section of the park, which was, even Leslie would admit, a lot worse than the Eagleton side.

“Hey guys!” Ben said, an obviously-fake enthusiasm partially masking his sadness and confusion.

Tom, April, and Andy each greeted him cursorily, April and Andy more interested in throwing garbage at Tom, who was still on his phone, than anything else. 

Leslie, however, put down her garbage bag and walked over to meet him. “You made it back!” she said excitedly.

“I couldn’t miss the ‘Lafayette Park Garbage Pickup Explosion!’” Ben replied, reading the name of the event from his itinerary. He lowered his voice for a moment. “There aren’t going to be any actual explosions are there?”

Leslie merely laughed at him as she started to walk back to their friends, Ben falling in step beside her.

“Oh!” Leslie said, stopping suddenly and turning to him. “What was that ‘incredibly important’ thing that Chris had to tell you?”

Ben froze. “Um, nothing. Yeah, really it was nothing. You know Chris, always making a big deal about stuff. He just had to tell me about a new… um…” Ben grasped for some viable excuse. “Exercise thing,” Ben decided, lamely. “Just some new exercise thing, typical Chris.” Ben laughed unconvincingly.

Leslie stared hard at him. “Oh. Okay then.” She moved away from him to grab her garbage bag and get one for Ben. 

Ben ran his hands down his face. He was so stupid! He hadn’t even bothered to come up with an excuse for what Chris had wanted to talk to him about! Of course Leslie was going to ask him about it because she was a very thoughtful, if not overly-curious, person, and of course he didn’t want to tell her about it now because he had barely thought the whole thing through himself and he didn’t want to ruin the rest of their time together. Ben really needed to get better at the quick-thinking on-the-spot stuff. He was hopeless.

Leslie handed him a trash bag, her eyes still narrowed as though she was searching for some clue about what was really going on with Ben.

Ben just tried to act normal, not that that ever worked out well for him.

Ben was very subdued for the duration of the “Garbage Pickup Explosion,” and he was still deep in thought as the group arrived at the “Harvey James Park Raccoon Hunt” afterward. Leslie kept looking at him, first suspiciously, but then concerned, since still Ben hadn’t come around after they had finished picking up trash at Lafayette Park.

“Ben? You okay?” she asked him, worriedly, as the pair led the way to the north end of Harvey James Park where a colony of raccoons usually spent the winter. It was getting warmer, so the creatures weren’t around as much, but Leslie still tried to monitor their activity, just in case anything happened.

Ben started slightly, Leslie’s words pulling him back to reality. “Oh, yeah, great. I’m great. Everything’s… great.” Ben was terrible at this. He took a deep breath, resolving to put the whole issue out of his mind and spend the rest of his time in Pawnee having fun with Leslie and their friends and not worrying about whether or not he had made the right decision.

Andy was really excited about raccoon spotting, and Ben decided to try to join him at the front lines. At the first sight of one of the creatures, however, Ben found that this job wasn’t for him, and he scampered away to the sounds of Tom and Leslie’s laughter and April’s voice mocking him.

“Hey! You know raccoons are dangerous!” Ben said, trying to defend himself.

“Well, yeah,” Tom replied, almost rolling his eyes. “That’s why we’re standing back here where they can’t attack us.”

Leslie patted Ben’s arm reassuringly. “It’s nice that you’re trying to get in on the action, but maybe leave this to the professionals.”

Ben looked at her blankly as though to say “really?” before finally laughing himself. 

The rest of the afternoon passed quickly, with one last stop at Tucker Park to deal with some graffiti. Leslie’s graffiti removal project of 2009 had taken care of most of the spray paint and lewd imagery, but at least once a month since the project finished up, she had come out to the park to battle any new “artwork” that had sprung up in that time. _She’s always going above and beyond_ , Ben thought as Leslie explained what they had to do. _No one in Richmond would have even worried about this._

Ben and Leslie painted over the last patch of graffiti together and then packed up their supplies and surveyed their handiwork. For the first time in weeks, Leslie and Ben did their finger guns Harvest Festival handshake, and Ben felt like everything was okay between them again.

Leslie congratulated the team on a successful day of parks maintenance and then let everyone go home to shower, get changed, and grab some food before they had to go meet at the Snakehole.

Drinks at the Snakehole ended up being just as fun as dinner had been the night before. Tom had brought Jean-Ralphio with him, to the dismay of the rest of the group, but watching Donna stare the curly-haired man down until he slunk back to the dance floor was pretty entertaining.

This, more than anything since he had gotten back to Pawnee, felt to Ben like normal life. It wasn’t a catch-up session or an afternoon spent pretending he still worked in Pawnee; this was just he and his friends hanging out at a club, blowing off steam like any other Friday night. They all had a couple drinks, a lot of laughs, and Leslie and Ann even got Ben to dance a little. 

Ben tried not to think about how tomorrow was his last full day in Pawnee and how, after Chris’s offer, it didn’t even have to be.

As they left the Snakehole late that night, Leslie asked Ben what he wanted to do with his last afternoon. He and Leslie were meeting for breakfast at JJ’s, obviously, but after that had been left up to him.

“Um, I don’t actually know,” Ben answered honestly, having not really thought about it too much. “I just want to, you know, enjoy my last day in Pawnee.” 

A small smile appeared on Leslie’s face. “Well I have some ideas then. I’ll see you at JJ’s. 10AM.” Leslie shook her head at her own words. Ben knew she was asking herself why people insisted on sleeping in on weekends when there was so much to be done. 

Ben nodded. “I’ll be there. And remember, I’m buying this time.”

As Ben headed back to the motel, the grin that had served as Leslie’s response was all Ben could think about.

Ben arrived early to JJ’s the next morning, but, naturally, Leslie had beaten him there. He asked her what the plan for the day was, but she just smiled and told him that he would find out later.

As they ate, neither one of them so much as mentioned the fact that Ben had to leave the next morning. It was like they were living in their own safe, secure, happy bubble, and Ben, for one, had no desire to pop it.

Ben couldn’t quite believe that he and Leslie still had stuff to talk about, since they had spent almost two full days together at this point, and they had kept in pretty close touch during the five weeks he was away, but, somehow, they did. Ben was fairly certain he could talk to Leslie forever, which just made his impending departure all the more painful. 

When they finished, Ben paying the bill this time as he had promised, Leslie practically ordered Ben into her car, telling him that she would drive him back to JJ’s to get his car after their “afternoon of adventure” as she had begun to call it. 

The adventure, or whatever it was, began with a trip to the site of the Battle of Indian Hill, where ninety-three year old Wamapoke Chief Wakote had been shot 102 times in the chest at the culmination of the Native Americans’ loss to the settlers. More recently, however, the site had served as the location of the Pawnee Harvest Festival. 

Ben hadn’t been back to site since the festival had finished and he, Leslie, and the rest of the Parks crew had helped take down the tents and clean up the area. 

“It’s weird to be here and not be worrying about Harvest Festival stuff,” Ben said wistfully as he walked around the field, smiling slightly up at the blue skies and sunshine that reminded him so much of the successful event.

“Yeah, it is,” Leslie said as she joined him. “I mean I’ve come here a billion times over the years for the memorial and the gift shop, but it feels different since the Festival. Now I just think about how the Ferris Wheel was over there.” She pointed to her left across the field. “And how past that was the corn maze.” The field had since been replanted, making it just a regular field of Pawnee corn.

“And Li’l Sebastian’s pen was right over there,” Ben pointed out, pretending, as usual, that he understood the big deal about the pony when really it made no sense to him.

Leslie grinned up at him. “Yeah it was.” She sighed slightly. “The Harvest Festival was the best.” 

Ben nodded. “It was. And no one could have done a better job with it than you,” Ben said softly, nudging Leslie’s arm with his. 

“Than _us_ ,” Leslie corrected, beaming. 

The pair stopped in at the gift shop, where Leslie, naturally, knew all the employees. She bought Ben a small stone arrowhead “to remind him of Pawnee,” and Ben quickly slipped in his pocket, a huge smile accompanying his thanks.

Next, Leslie drove them to the Hompherman Snow Globe Museum, which Ben hadn’t actually gotten to visit when he had lived in Pawnee, despite Leslie’s insistence that he had to go. They had a little trouble getting in, since Leslie had apparently been “asked not to return” the last time she had visited the museum. After promising several times to the curator and to various museum employees that she would not, under any circumstances, shake any of the snow globes, Leslie and Ben were granted admission. 

“So you really can’t shake the snow globes here?” Ben asked Leslie in a whisper, not wanting his friend to get into any more trouble.

Leslie shook her head. “Nope. It’s really confusing, but proprietor’s rules.”

Ben laughed quietly to himself. Pawnee was such a weird town, but it was still wonderful, somehow.

Following the Snow Globe Museum, which Ben had to admit was actually pretty awesome, no-shaking rule aside, Leslie drove them to the zoo.

Ben had been to the Pawnee zoo once before, but it had just been a short trip with Chris to figure out what they could and couldn’t cut during the three-month government shutdown when they had first arrived.

Going to the zoo with Leslie was a different story. Leslie knew about all the animals, having spent the summer the year before Ben arrived working on various zoo promotions. She explained to him the entire controversy surrounding the gay penguin wedding that had ended the string of zoo promotions, since Ben had never actually heard the whole story. He had to agree with Leslie that the whole thing just sounded really cute. He wished he’d actually gotten to be there for the ceremony.

As the pair exited the zoo after a couple fun hours spent wandering around looking at the animals, Leslie turned to Ben with an excited glint in her eyes. “How do you feel about bowling?”

Fifteen minutes later, Ben and Leslie were slipping on bowling shoes at the Rock and Roll Bowling Alley, Leslie cautioning Ben that she was really good.

Ten frames later, Ben discovered this to be absolutely true, as his semi-respectable 125 was trounced by Leslie’s 207.

Leslie checked her watch. “Time for one more stop,” she said, a small smile playing on her lips. 

Ben narrowed his eyes at her inquisitively, but Leslie didn’t elaborate, ushering him into her car once again. She drove back into the heart of Pawnee, and they ended up at city hall. 

Ben glanced sideways at his friend as she grabbed his arm and wordlessly led him inside the building, her ID badge getting her through the front doors, but again she gave no explanation. 

As Leslie began to climb the stairs to the second floor, Ben finally understood where she was taking him.

“The wildflower mural,” Ben said, a smile growing across his face.

Leslie nodded at him, smiling, as she sat down on the bench in front of it. “My favorite place in the world.”

Ben sat down beside her. “It’s a pretty great favorite place.”

Leslie looked at him for a moment, her smile dimming. She exhaled slowly. “So, you’re leaving tomorrow morning,” she said finally.

Ben sighed. He had known they were going to have to mention it eventually. “I’m leaving tomorrow morning,” he replied evenly.

Leslie took a deep breath and began speaking quickly. “It’s been so amazing having you back, but now you have to go again, and the same thing’s gonna happen if you visit after Marion and then after the next city and the next. And maybe one day you’ll just stop visiting, and Pawnee will be just another city you went to as an auditor, and you won’t remember JJ’s or the Harvest Festival or the wildflower mural… or any of us.” Leslie’s words were getting more and more rushed as she went on, her eyes shining, impassioned and upset. “Why can’t you just stay? I know you don’t have a job here or a place to live or anything, but that doesn’t matter! Pawnee’s your home, Ben. You belong here with us; I know you do. And I… I really missed you when you were gone, and the thought of you leaving again just sucks so much.” 

Ben could see tears welling up in Leslie’s eyes. He didn’t know what to say. Should he tell her that he hated this as much as she did? That Pawnee was his home and that these three days had shown that to him more clearly than ever? That he liked her a lot and really wanted to kiss her to stop her from crying? Questions and answers bounced around in his head, but he realized that there was one thing he definitely had to tell Leslie right at that moment. She needed to know about Chris’s job offer and what his decision had been and how maybe, just maybe, after Marion he could end up back here for good. 

“Leslie-” Ben’s sentence was interrupted by the ring of Leslie’s phone.

She held up a finger to tell him to wait as she answered it. “Hey Ann, are we good?” Leslie paused. “Great! We’ll be there in ten! See you soon!”

Leslie hung up the phone and immediately stood up. “Let’s go, Ben! It’s time for the final stage of your Afternoon of Adventure! Though I guess it’s really more of an evening now…” Leslie trailed off for a moment, thinking, before shaking her head and grabbing Ben’s arm again to pull him back down the stairs. 

Ben swallowed the words he was going to say to Leslie. He didn’t need to get her hopes up about him coming back to Pawnee when Chris could easily find an Assistant City Manager before Ben finished up in Marion.

“So what’s going on?” Ben asked instead, as they returned to the parking lot, but Leslie, naturally, didn’t answer him.

He got in the passenger seat of Leslie’s car and found Leslie facing him inside with a piece of black fabric that she had seemingly pulled from nowhere. “Turn around. I’m blindfolding you,” she said forcefully. 

Ben did as he was told, and soon the black fabric was tied tightly around his head and he couldn’t see a thing.

“You’re not going to murder me, are you?” Ben asked cautiously as the car began to move. 

Leslie’s maniacal laughter didn’t do anything to placate his fears.

After about ten minutes, the car came to a stop, and Ben heard Leslie move out of the car beside him. A moment later, she was at his door, opening it for him and guiding him out of the car and onto what felt like grass.

“Please don’t kill me, Leslie,” Ben pleaded, mostly joking, but a hint of seriousness creeping into his voice.

He could almost hear Leslie’s eye roll. “I’m not going to kill you. Come on.”

She took his arm and led him across the grass onto what Ben assumed was a sidewalk. Leslie stopped him and turned him to the left, and then Ben heard Leslie open a door. 

“Watch your step,” Leslie said before laughing hysterically at her joke, since a blindfolded Ben really couldn’t watch anything.

Ben stepped through what seemed to be a doorway and then stopped. 

“Okay, here we are!” Leslie moved behind him and pulled off his blindfold.

“SURPRISE!”

Ben was standing in Ann’s living room surrounded by the entire Parks Department, plus Chris and Ann, who were all grinning hugely at him (except April, who was frowning, and Ron, who didn’t typically grin at things like this). Two giant banners spanned across the room, one that read “WELCOME BACK BEN!” and another that read “GOODBYE BEN!” both in equally large print. There were balloons and streamers, and Ann’s dining room table was piled with chips and pizza boxes, one of which was open and contained not pizzas, but calzones! Actual calzones! Ben couldn’t believe it. Never in his life had friends done something like this for him. He really didn’t know what to say. 

“Oh my God! Guys! How did you-? When-? Calzones!?!” Ben found himself unable to form complete sentences. 

Tom glanced around at the rest of their friends. “See, I told you guys that we just needed to give him calzones, and he’d be happy. We could have just thrown some at his hotel door, and we’d have gotten the same reaction!” 

“Tom, no,” Leslie reproached their friend. “This is Ben’s last night in Pawnee, so we’re all here to have fun, calzones or no calzones.” She turned to Ben. “We didn’t actually get to give you a goodbye party last time, or a real welcome back party this time, so this is both. Plus another goodbye for when you leave tomorrow.”

Ben stared at his friend, speechless. “I… I can’t believe you guys did all this for me.” 

“Come on, we had to, Bennihana!” Tom said, his usual swagger laced with actual sentiment. 

“You’re our little buddy!” Donna added, smiling at him “And you’re not getting away this time without an _actual_ going away party.” 

“Thanks,” Ben said simply, words failing him. 

Andy looked eagerly at Leslie. “So can we eat now?”

Leslie smiled, sighing. “Yes, you can eat now, Andy.”

“Yes!” Andy vaulted over the sofa and grabbed a pizza box that contained an actual pizza instead of calzones. Ron, April, Tom, Jerry, and Donna followed his lead, though they actually walked around the couch instead of going over it.

Ben turned to Ann. “Thanks so much for doing all this.”

Ann smiled at him, shrugging. “It’s no trouble. We’re just gonna miss you when you head back on the road. And this was all Leslie anyway.” She gestured around at the decorations. “She dropped them off here this morning, and she’s been texting me specific instructions all afternoon.” Ann flashed a quick grin at Leslie and then moved into the dining room to grab a slice of pizza. 

Ben’s eyes fell on his friend who was still standing beside him, looking at the ground almost sheepishly.

“You’re so… great,” Ben said, not sure exactly how to convey his gratitude to this amazing person that he was so lucky to have in his life 

Leslie’s smile let him know that she understood. She rested her hand on his arm for a moment before moving away to get some food.

Ben was left in the living room with Chris.

“It’s been really great having you back here, Ben,” Chris said seriously. “It’s _literally_ going to be the worst thing ever all over again having you leave tomorrow. Actually, I think it might even be worse this time since you’re only not staying because you turned down my offer to be Assistant City Manager here.”

“Chris! Not so loud!” Ben hissed at him, but the damage had already been done.

“You turned down his WHAT?” Leslie Knope was glaring at Ben with a white-hot rage that Ben hadn’t witnessed since his first few encounters with the woman more than seven moths before. She looked as though she was going to throw something at him, but that wasn’t the worst part of it. Behind the anger and shock in her eyes, Ben could see only one thing: pain. Leslie Knope, the woman Ben was beginning to realize he cared about more than anything in the world, was hurt, and it was all his stupid fault.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading! You guys are all amazing!!!


	5. Pawnee to Marion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much everyone who's been reading this story! I'm having such a great time writing it. :-)

The silence was deafening. 

“What did you turn down, Ben?” Leslie asked again, a biting edge to her voice and her eyes flashing menacingly at him. “What did Chris just say?” 

Ben knew that it was best for him to just be honest. He took a deep breath. “Chris offered me a job as Assistant City Manager yesterday, and I didn’t take it.” 

Leslie stared at him as though he had just stabbed her in the chest. “Why?” she said simply, the anger in her voice replaced with utter confusion.

Ben stared at his friend pleadingly, hoping that maybe, just maybe, she would understand. “I already signed on to go to Marion, and I can’t just abandon Martin and the state government.” 

At Ben’s words, Leslie stepped toward him, fire in her eyes and her fists clenched at her sides. “So you can’t abandon your precious state government, but you can abandon us?”

“No, Leslie, I’m not abandon-” Ben tried to explain, but Leslie wasn’t listening. 

“Of course you’re abandoning us!” Leslie fired back at him. “You come back for three days and make us miss you all over again, and then, when you actually have a chance to stay, you say ‘Nah, who cares about Pawnee! Pawnee sucks!’” 

Ben began to get upset himself. “How can you even say that?” he yelled back at her, surprising even himself with the volume of his response. “You think this hasn’t been _killing_ me for the past two days? You think I’m not staying because I don’t care about _Pawnee_? Less than twenty minutes ago you told me that Pawnee was my home, and now you’re just taking that back?” 

“I only said that to try to get you to stay!” Leslie argued, getting into stride. “Because I _thought_ that you would actually want to. But apparently not. I can’t believe you, Ben. I was sitting there trying to convince you not to leave, and you actually _knew_ that there was a way you could stay.” She shook her head at him, silently, as though she was unsure of how to even respond to what he had done.

“After all we’ve been though, Ben,” she said after a moment. “The Harvest Festival, five weeks of phone calls and emails and all those times you told me how much you missed Pawnee. These past three days… JJ’s, the snow globe museum, the zoo!” Her words grew louder and more rapid as she continued. “Ben, we went to the _zoo_ together today, and you didn’t have the decency to say ‘oh Leslie, like that tropical bird that just pooped in its cage over there, I’m pooping on our entire friendship and leaving Pawnee when I could easily have taken a job here! I was right about you all along, Ben. You _are_ a jerk.” She turned away from him, her shoulders shaking. 

“Leslie, wait,” Ben said, reaching out for her. 

She whipped around to face him again. “Wait for what? For you to stop in after Marion so I can get my hopes up about you maybe coming back to stay just so you can leave and crush them again? I’m done with this, Ben. I’m done.” 

“Leslie, I was going to tell you about the offer earlier, but then Ann called, and you blindfolded me and brought me here,” Ben tried to explain quickly.

Leslie’s face didn’t change. “And what about any other time in the past day and a half? I assume that this was the ‘incredibly important’ thing Chris had to tell you at lunch yesterday? It’s been over 24 hours since then. You can’t just say you were ‘going to tell me.’” Leslie added air quotes around her last few words.

She turned to glare at Chris. “And you! You didn’t tell me about this either! We were at the Snakehole together for hours yesterday, and you didn’t even mention it.”

“Ben asked me not too,” Chris said quietly, barely meeting Leslie’s eyes.

Ben was ready to kill his old auditing partner. 

“Of course Ben asked you not to!” Leslie said, laughing bitterly. “Because _Ben_ doesn’t care about his friends in Pawnee that get _dinner_ with him and throw him _parties_ and take him to the _zoo_. Ben doesn’t want to work with _those_ people; he likes his new stupid friends in stupid Richmond and stupid Marion!” She stopped to breathe.

“Leslie, you know that’s not true, so just stop!” Ben argued back, Leslie’s words cutting into him. “I came back to Pawnee to spend my three days off with my closest friends, to spend them with _you_. I could have gone anywhere, but I came _here_!”

“Well I wish you had gone anywhere _but_ here!” Leslie shouted back at him. She paused for a moment. “Get out,” she said finally, her voice quiet. “Get out right now.” She pointed at the door.

“What?” Ben’s anger faded for a moment as he stood in front of Leslie helplessly.

“You heard what I said,” Leslie replied with a cold fury. “Get out. This party isn’t for jerks and traitors who would rather go to stupid Marion than live in Pawnee.” 

“Leslie-” Ben tried to argue back, but the blonde woman pushed him toward the door.

“Wait, you drove me here,” Ben remembered quickly, moving away from Leslie. “My car’s at JJ’s.”

“I’ll drive you back then, Ben,” Chris spoke up quickly, ushering Ben out of Ann’s house. “Thanks for the great party!” Chris called as the front door slammed behind them.

Ben whirled around to face his friend. “Dude! Why’d you have to bring that up in front of everyone? I told you Leslie would get upset if she heard!” Ben threw his head back, hopelessly. “She’s never gonna talk to me again.”

“Come on, Ben,” Chris said, leading Ben cautiously over to his car. “It’ll be okay.” 

“No it won’t, Chris!” Ben said, upset, as he sat down in the passenger seat. “You know Leslie! Once she makes her mind up about something, it’s impossible for her to change it. She holds grudges longer than anyone I know. Look at her and Eagleton! Her and the _Library_!”

Ben pounded his head against the dashboard.

“Look, Ben,” Chris said, putting his hand on Ben’s shoulder sympathetically. “I’m sorry for bringing it up when you asked me not to, but maybe it’s good that this is all out in the open. Leslie just needs to let off some steam, and then I’m sure things will be fine again. She can change her mind about some things, you know. She hated _you_ at the beginning.” 

“And now she hates me again. Nothing’s changed.” Ben slumped back in his seat, unconvinced by Chris’s positivity. Chris always tried to make everything happy and easy, but it was never that simple.

Ben stared at Ann’s house mournfully as they drove off. He hadn’t even gotten to eat a calzone. 

Chris dropped him off in the JJ’s parking lot as it began to rain, the clear skies that had graced the town for the past few days having disappeared. 

“Stay in touch, Ben,” Chris said seriously. “And come back and visit whenever you can. You can stay at my place, no need to get a hotel room.”

Ben half smiled at his friend. Chris wasn’t the most tactful of people, but he really did care. “Thanks, man. I’ll let you know how things in Marion are going once I settle in.” 

Chris smiled. “Fantastic! Have a good night, Ben.” 

“Goodnight, Chris.” Ben got out of his friend’s car and rushed to get into his own without getting too wet. 

Ben watched the headlights of his friend’s vehicle disappear in the distance as the rain fell in sheets around him. Somehow a day that had been very much in contention for the best day of Ben’s life had suddenly emerged in the contest for the worst day of Ben’s life, though the competition for that honor was much steeper, since he had years of auditing problems, plus the whole situation in Partridge, that already had the position pretty much locked down.

Ben drove cautiously back to the Pawnee Super Suites, grateful for the first time that he had to leave in the morning. He doubted he could deal with being in the same town as Leslie and having her be mad at him for longer than a night.

He hurried into his motel room as quickly as possible, partly to avoid the rain, and partly because he just wanted to take a shower and feel sorry for himself.

Forty-five minutes later, after a very lengthy, very depressing, shower, he threw on dry clothes and suddenly realized that he was starving, having not gotten to have any food at the party. He warmed up the one cold Taco Bell burrito he had left in the mini fridge from his dinner the day before when he had eaten between parks maintenance and going out to the Snakehole. It was slightly soggy, but still edible, so he ate it quickly and then began to repack his overnight bag, tossing articles in it thoughtlessly, not worrying about how wrinkled his shirts were going to be when he unpacked them in Marion.

As he hung his wet clothes over the back of a chair, a small object slipped out of the pocket of his pants. Ben bent down to pick it up. 

It was the arrowhead that Leslie had gotten him from the Battle of Indian Hill gift shop. Leslie must have forgotten she had given it to him, otherwise, he was sure she would have demanded to have it back, since he was a “traitor” and everything.

Ben sat down against the wall holding the object tightly in his hand. His mind drifted back to Leslie sitting on the bench in front of the wildflower mural telling him how much she missed him and how much she hated the thought of him leaving again. Why hadn’t he just stopped her and told her about the job? Why hadn’t he kissed her instead of letting her drag him to Ann’s house?

Leslie hated him now. She was hurt and angry, and she had every right to be. This had been an important decision for Ben to make, and Leslie, more than anyone, should have had the right to know about it. 

He’d messed this up so badly. It was like his breakdown on Perd Hapley all over again. Only worse. When he had turned into Ben Wyatt: Human Disaster, as Joan Callamezzo had labeled him, Leslie had been at his side. Admittedly, she had been at his side wondering if he needed some sort of psychiatric attention, but she had been at his side nonetheless. This time, however, there was no Leslie. It was Leslie who hated him. Leslie who had called him a jerk and a traitor and ordered him out of Ann’s house. And, to make things worse, if Leslie wasn’t his friend anymore, then he’d lost everyone else in Pawnee too. 

Of course they would all support Leslie, and Ben didn’t blame them for that. They were her friends first, and Ben had only known them all for six months; he could slip out of their lives without leaving so much as a dent. For Ben though, losing all of them at the same time really hurt. He had been traveling all around Indiana for years now, and lasting friendships had been hard to come by. He had Chris, who he was immensely grateful for, but besides his old partner, all he had was a long list of facebook friends who would be glad to get a beer with him if he came to town, but who, otherwise, didn’t have any connection to him.

Pawnee had always been different though. He and Tom weren’t similar people at all, but they had gotten really close in Ben’s last three months in the town. Andy had hugged him like a long-lost brother when he’d gotten back, and even April actually sort-of liked him. These people had stayed in contact with him when he left, and that was different. And now it was gone.

But even if the entire city of Pawnee decided it hated him, Ben would have been okay if it wasn’t for one blonde, passionate public servant who had made a huge mark on every part of him, a bigger mark than everyone else in this city combined. Ben had forgotten what life was like without thinking of Leslie when he ate breakfast food or heard about a new government policy or saw a park. Ben’s life pre-Leslie Knope paled in comparison to his life after he had met her. The gray world of government had burst into color with her enthusiasm. The grim idea of a budget deficit was turned on its head by her ideas and her passion. Ben had never been so happy, so himself, as he had been with her. And now she hated him.

Ben kept repeating that fact to himself, letting it sink in. The person he cared more about than anyone else in the world hated him. And he deserved it. He was a lousy state auditor who claimed he felt at home in one town, but refused to take a chance and stay there when he was presented with the opportunity.

Ben took a deep breath as he moved the arrowhead around in his hand. He reached over to his bag and pulled out the largest object inside it: the scrapbook that Leslie had given him the night before he had left Pawnee last time. Ben flipped through it to the photo of he and Leslie at the Harvest Festival. She was smiling so widely at him in the picture. Ben was struck with the realization that he would probably never see that smile directed at him again.

As a single teardrop fell onto the page, Ben closed the book and got up off the floor, brushing more tears from his eyes as he did. He was Ben Wyatt: State Auditor, and he had a new assignment tomorrow and needed to get some sleep. There was nothing he could do about this now. 

It took Ben ages to fall asleep that night as he tossed and turned, his mind racing, and when he finally did get to sleep it was fitful, and he found himself waking up every hour and realizing, once again, that his life had fallen apart. 

At 6AM, Ben decided to give up and just head out. He showered quickly, trying to erase the memories of the previous night. He packed his still slightly damp clothes from the day before in his bag, making sure to keep them separate from the scrapbook. Even if Leslie hated him now, he wanted to hold onto every memory he had from when she hadn’t hated him. He slung his bag across his shoulders and did a quick once-over of the room to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything. He spotted the arrowhead still sitting on the nightstand and pocketed it, his face expressionless.

Ben checked out of the hotel in the lobby, Linda sweetly inviting him to come back anytime. Ben wasn’t sure he would ever be able to take her up on that offer.

As he exited the building, he noticed, gratefully, that the rain had stopped. The sky was still a dull gray, and there were puddles all over the parking lot, but at least Ben wasn’t going to have to drive out of Pawnee at 6:30 in the morning in the pouring rain.

He neared his car, still bleary eyed from his restless night, but then stopped as he realized that someone was already waiting by it.

“Leslie?” Ben said, confused, slowly approaching the blonde woman who looked as though she hadn’t really slept the night before either. Her hair was messy, her eyes were puffy, and it looked like she was still in her pajamas. 

The woman looked up at him, suddenly alert, a ghost of a smile appearing on her lips. “I knew you’d try to get out this early.”

“How long have you been out here?” Ben asked, finally reaching her.

She shrugged. “A while. It doesn’t matter. I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for what I said last night. I didn’t listen to you, and it wasn’t fair of me to demand that you tell me every little detail about your life. I’m sorry I called you a jerk and a traitor. You’re actually one of the un-jerk-iest people I know, so, I’m sorry.” She passed him a box that had been sitting behind her. “I figured you’d want these.”

Ben opened it and found the calzones from the party the night before. He smiled at them, and then looked up at Leslie. “Thank you. For the calzones, and for saying that. And I’m sorry for not telling you. I really was going to, I just didn’t want it to ruin the last two days we had together.”

“I understand,” she nodded. “Well, good luck in Marion, and come back and visit again if you ever have any time. I promise I won’t order you out of any parties,” she joked, slightly awkwardly.

Ben set the box of calzones on the back of his car and reached out his arms for a hug. This wasn’t the same Leslie Knope hug as he had gotten when he had left Pawnee five weeks ago or when he had gotten back on Thursday or even when Leslie had beaten him in bowling the day before and he had hugged her in congratulations. This was stiffer, more formal, as though there was a wall between them. Leslie had apologized, and Ben had apologized, but Ben knew she was still upset about everything, and regardless of how mad she had been the night before, Ben knew that a lot of what she had said still applied. He was still leaving. He still hadn’t told her what was going on. He still had kind of disregarded their entire friendship. Leslie had apologized for calling him a jerk, but Ben was pretty sure he had at least deserved that one.

They broke apart, neither one of them saying anything. 

Ben took a deep breath. “Well, I’ll see you around.”

“See you.”

Ben got in his car, throwing his bag in the back and setting the box of calzones on the passenger seat. He could see Leslie in the rearview mirror moving back over to her car. She waved at him. He waved back. And then he left.

As Ben got on the highway, he could see the Sweetums and Kernston’s billboards disappearing in the distance behind him, and, after a few moments, they were gone. All traces of Pawnee had disappeared, and Ben was alone again.

Ben didn’t switch the radio on as he drove back to Indianapolis, the road nearly empty since it was 7AM on a Sunday. He replayed his last conversation with Leslie in his head over and over. He was incredibly grateful that she hadn’t let him leave Pawnee still thinking that she thought he was a jerk and that she wanted him to go, but there was something different between them now, and it wasn’t a good different. It was bad.

All he could hope was that getting back to auditing in Marion would take his mind off things.

Ben arrived in Indianapolis a little after eight, despite the fact that he and Martin weren’t meeting with their boss until ten. Ben stopped in at a diner near the state house to get some breakfast. He couldn’t help but compare it to JJ’s. There was nothing warm or welcoming about this clearly Indianapolis establishment, and, when his waffles were delivered to him, they weren’t even close to as good as JJ’s. Ben normally didn’t get waffles when he stopped in diners or other restaurants for breakfast, but something about the way he had left things with Leslie made him crave the breakfast food. Only these waffles weren’t very good, plus they made him think about Leslie, which was just painful. 

Ben sipped his coffee grimly, staring into space, alone in his booth as the diner began to come to life around him, men and women drifting in from outside as the Sunday sky brightened. 

Suddenly his phone started ringing, jolting him out of his thoughts. 

“Hello?”

“Hey Ben, it’s Martin. You back in town yet?” 

Ben was further pulled back into reality by his auditing partner’s words. He and Martin were leaving to go to Marion after they met with their boss in just over an hour. “Oh, hey Martin. Yeah I got back a bit ago. I’m having breakfast in that diner by the state house.” 

“Oh, great!” the other man said, too enthusiastically for so early on a Sunday, in Ben’s opinion. “You mind if I join you? I can be there in ten.”

“Yeah, sure,” Ben replied automatically. “We can talk Marion details.”

“Sounds good. See you soon.” Martin hung up.

Ben sat up straighter in the booth, trying to pull himself together. He glanced down at the half-eaten waffle that was getting cold on his plate. He was really going to have to move on. There was a city in financial trouble that needed his help, and there was nothing else he could do about Leslie or Pawnee. 

True to his word, about ten minutes later, Martin walked through the diner door, and Ben flagged him down.

“Hey, man!” Martin said, grinning. “Good to see you! How was your trip to Pawnee?”

Ben figured it would just be easier to focus on everything that had happened before the disaster of a Welcome Home/Goodbye party from the night before. “Pretty good. Saw some old friends, had some fun. Really nice break from work.”

Martin nodded along with his words. “Amen to that. I always forget how great it is to get back to Indy after a long stay in another town like that. It’s nice to come home.” 

At the word home, Ben’s mind flashed not to Indianapolis or even Partridge but to JJ’s Diner, Pawnee City Hall, his friends laughing at the Snakehole. “Yeah, it is.”

Martin ordered bacon and eggs quickly before getting down to business. “So have you heard about the situation in Marion?” 

Ben shook his head.

“Well I don’t know everything, but I’m pretty sure their problems are similar to Richmond’s, maybe a little worse. Probably a six-week thing, ballpark.” He thought for a moment as though trying to remember any other information he had about their next assignment. “Oh, and, you’ll be interested in this, I’ve heard that the town’s got a great parks department. Apparently the director is amazing, and that’s the only branch that’s really been fiscally responsible.”

This news didn’t bring Ben any excitement. He wasn’t sure if spending more time with yet another parks department was really a good idea for him. 

Martin seemed a little confused by Ben’s lack of enthusiasm, so he added a bit more to his point. “Gotta be better than Bridgette Evans, right?”

Ben gave a small smile at Martin’s jab at the Richmond parks deputy director. “That’s not too hard,” he joked back.

Martin laughed and then sat back as his bacon and eggs were delivered to the table. 

“So, driving,” Martin said, digging into his food. “You mind if we take separate cars? I’ve got some friends who are insisting that I come back to Indy on weekends.”

Ben shrugged. “Doesn’t matter to me. That’s fine.”

Martin nodded in reply, and they let the booth fall into silence.

“So d’you see that parks deputy director friend of yours while you were in Pawnee?” Martin asked conversationally after a few minutes as he glanced at Ben knowingly from above the rim of his coffee cup.

Ben almost rolled his eyes at his partner. “Yeah I did,” he replied, trying to convey to Martin that he didn’t really want to talk about it.

Martin apparently didn’t get the message. “What’d you guys do?”

Ben sighed, slightly exasperated. “Just hung out. I helped her and the rest of the department with some parks maintenance on Friday, picking up garbage and stuff, and we got breakfast a couple times. Pawnee has this really amazing diner. Leslie’s pretty much obsessed with their waffles.” Ben had to smile slightly as he thought about his blonde friend’s passion for JJ’s waffles and whipped cream.

Martin glanced down at the remains of the waffle on Ben’s plate and then raised his eyebrows.

Ben ignored him, changing the subject. “How was Indy?” 

Martin, it seemed, had had an amazing time in Indianapolis. He kept asking Ben if he had been to certain bars or restaurants in the city, but Ben never had. He may have been based out of Indianapolis for 12 years now, but that didn’t mean he had any real attachment to the place. He mostly just came into the city for meetings and then left to go off to whatever town was in trouble. 

Of course, if someone had asked his opinion on any establishment in _Pawnee_ , Ben would have probably had a real opinion, or at least a Leslie story to base his judgment on. It was those kinds of things that Ben really missed.

As Martin finished eating, the two men paid for their meals and headed over to the state house. It was Sunday so the building was empty, just a couple security guards who nodded at them as they entered using Martin’s keycard.

They met their boss in his office, and he filled them in quickly on Marion.

It seemed like Martin had pretty much heard the whole story: Marion had a lot of issues with most of its departments, though nothing was as bad as Pawnee had been, and so the whole job would take about six weeks. Apparently the great Parks director had been working on budget issues for a while now, and things had actually gotten better, but the town was still in trouble. Ben and Martin were apparently going to be working a lot with this director, plus the city manager, to try and fix everything. They were due at Marion City Hall 9AM the following morning.

Ben maintained his neutral expression throughout the entire meeting. Sure, maybe getting back on the road would take his mind off things, but were those things really worth taking his mind off of? Ben felt the arrowhead that was still in his pocket. A little piece of home.

The drive to Marion was just over an hour and a half long. Their boss had given Martin and Ben each the addresses of their hotel and of city hall as well as the name of the city manager to ask for the next morning. The drive was long and boring, and Ben just felt empty.

When he had made the drive to Richmond five weeks before, he had been sad about leaving Pawnee, but he knew that Leslie would be in touch, and that email and video from her at the end of his first day had kept him going. 

Ben didn’t think there would even be an email, let alonea video, this time.

He stared at the road ahead of him blank-faced. He couldn’t find any excitement in the prospect of living in Marion for the next six weeks, but at least he could warm up a couple calzones to have once he got there; half a waffle wasn’t really enough to sustain him for the whole day.

The next morning, Ben and Martin arrived at city hall just before nine. The building was a similar size to Richmond’s, though the architecture was different. 

A slightly frazzled looking city manager met them in the lobby and said he would show them around. He seemed nice, if a little incompetent, as he fumbled with his papers and jumbled up his words. It seemed like he was really worried about what these state auditors were going to do to his town. Ben had to pity the guy; Ben’s months in Pawnee had definitely softened him.

“I’ll show you the Parks Department first,” the city manager said hurriedly. “Lauren Campbell’s the department director and she’s been essentially in charge of city finances for the last month or two.” 

After the events of the past weekend, hearing about another Parks Department didn’t make Ben uneasy as it had made him back in Richmond; there was just a dull ache in his chest that had been there since he’d left Pawnee. He hadn’t gotten so much as a text from Tom, Donna, April or Andy, and he hadn’t even heard from _Jerry_. Ben was very subdued as the city manager led he and Martin into the office of the Marion Parks Department.

Immediately, they were greeted by a tall, light brown-haired woman who wore a serious expression, but whose eyes seemed kind. 

“Lauren Campbell, Parks Director,” she said in greeting as she shook hands with Martin and Ben who introduced themselves in response.

“I hear you’ve been trying to deal with the budget,” Ben said to the woman.

She nodded. “My background’s in accounting. I did that for a while until I decided I wanted to help out the community, so I got into local government. I’ve been Parks Director for five years now.”

Ben finally smiled. “I’ll be nice to have another accountant around. Normally I get municipal employees who either couldn’t care less about the budget or who refuse to let us cut anything.”

Ms. Campbell smiled back. “That does seem to be how most people are, but don’t worry Mr. Wyatt; I’ll be here to help out.” 

“Just Ben’s fine, Ms. Campbell,” Ben corrected her.

“Then I’ll just be Lauren, Ben.” Her grin grew wider. Then she turned to the city manager. “You want me to walk through things with these two? I can tell them where the biggest problems are and what we’ve done so far to sort things out.”

The city manager mumbled a reply about how that would be great before he practically sprinted out of the office.

Ben raised his eyebrows at the city manager’s retreating back and then turned to Lauren. 

She rolled her eyes slightly, shaking her head. “He’s a really great guy, and he’s excellent with day to day management stuff, but he prefers to be in the background. He’s not the best at budget stuff, so this whole situation’s been stressful for him. He’ll be less flustered when you guys have been here for a while.” She laughed to herself for a moment before turning back to Ben and Martin. “So let me introduce you to my team here and to some of the other department heads, and then we can get to work.”

As Lauren went over the entire situation, Ben could tell she was really glad he and Martin were there. It seemed her entire government had no sense of proper money management, an idea which reminded Ben instantly of his first days in Pawnee when he discovered that the taxpayers of the town were actually paying child support payments for Councilman Dexhart’s kids.

But rest of the government aside, Ben instantly liked and respected Lauren. She was really smart, and, more than that, she knew what she was doing. He could tell that there would be no impassioned arguments from Lauren, but rather carefully planned proposals expertly budgeted to improve town health. It would certainly be a change. As the Parks director worked her way through the problems with the Marion government, Ben was completely certain that he and Lauren would make a good team. 

As the day stretched on, Ben found himself unconsciously comparing Lauren to Leslie back in Pawnee. They were both exemplary employees, but in somehow completely different ways. Where Leslie was a non-stop fountain of brilliant ideas, Lauren knew how to execute a particular program with the utmost fiscal responsibility. Lauren’s office was devoid of clutter and was utterly organized, whereas Leslie’s had been stuffed with idea binders and photos of female politicians. Lauren’s deputy director was a younger man who had the enthusiasm aspect that wasn’t necessarily present in the director. He was the one who went to all the park functions, while Lauren drew up paperwork and took care of all the mechanics. Ben couldn’t help but smile to himself as he remembered how Leslie essentially did both jobs.

The days in Marion passed more quickly than the ones in Richmond had. For one thing, Ben liked the Marion employees a bit more, or at the very least there was no one in Marion he disliked, as opposed to his feelings for Bridgette Evans from the other town. 

But Ben did find it harder to really get back into the groove of working through a budget, and he knew why: he had almost completely lost his connection with his friends back in Pawnee, if they even still wanted to be friends with him anyway.

As promised, he had gotten in touch with Chris after he had been in Marion for a few days, but apparently things were very busy in Pawnee because the other man’s reply had been short, though still highly enthusiastic.

After waiting a week without hearing anything from any of his Parks Department friends, Ben finally broke down and emailed Tom, Donna, and April, figuring they were the most likely to respond to him. 

Tom got back to him quickly with usual Tom Haverford-esque stories, though he didn’t say a word about Leslie, which was who Ben really wanted to hear about. April’s reply was even less helpful, but there wasn’t a usual “I hate you,” “go away,” or other similar phrase at the end of the email. It seemed like she didn’t want to bring up any memories of Ben’s last night in Pawnee. Andy had added his own reply to April’s email, but his was a usual collection of random stories that told Ben nothing. Ben was still grateful to know that things were at least normal with one of his Pawnee friends.

Ben had been hoping that Donna would give him information about Leslie, since she had been so convinced that they liked each other that Thursday back in Pawnee, but her reply was just a “hey” and a “we miss you” and not much else. Apparently she was keeping her mouth shut too.

After hearing nothing about Leslie from anyone else, Ben finally decided that he needed to reach out to her himself. He sent her a short email asking how things were going and giving her a brief survey of the budget situation in Marion, adding that he had been to one of the town’s parks and that he had thought Harvey James Park was much prettier. 

It had taken two full days for Ben to hear back from Leslie, a record for the longest time it had ever taken her to reply to one of Ben’s emails. It was also the shortest email he had ever gotten from the Pawnee Deputy Director. Not a single word was written in all caps, and there wasn’t an exclamation point in sight. She barely gave him any details about her life, and the tone of the email was unusually formal.

She was undoubtedly still mad at him, and Ben was at a loss at what to do. He considered trying to get in touch with Ann, but he figured that might be a little too much.

So he immersed himself in the Marion city budget instead. Ben found that he had been right about Lauren; she and Ben did make a great team. Martin did a lot of work with the other department heads and the city manager, acting as a liaison between the budgeting team and the rest of the city, while Ben and Lauren took apart the actual budget with help from other Parks employees.

Ben found himself actually enjoying himself a little as he worked diligently with half the Marion Parks Department; certainly he was having more fun in Marion than he had had in Richmond. But every time Lauren or anyone else in the department asked if he wanted to get lunch or go out after work, Ben resisted. It wasn’t like he hadn’t gone out after work with people in Richmond, but with this Marion Parks Department it was like he was becoming one of the gang, part of a group of friends, and Ben didn’t know if that’s what he wanted. He already had a Parks Department that he had gotten close to but that he lost because of one stupid thing he did. He wasn’t sure he wanted to get attached to Marion’s too.

Lauren, particularly, was always up for inviting him to go out with her and her friends. She would punch his arm lightly and tell him to have some fun, to which he would reply with a joke about how going over the Marion budget _was_ fun. It was little stuff like this that really reminded him of Leslie. But it seemed like the blonde deputy director had moved on, and maybe it was time for Ben to do the same thing.

On a Wednesday nearly three weeks into his stay in Marion, Lauren knocked on the door of his makeshift office and came in looking determined.

“Okay, Wyatt,” she said seriously, “I know that you’ve barely seen any of this city besides a couple of parks, so you’re getting lunch with me tomorrow at the best sandwich place in town. They have the most amazing French fries, and they’re pretty much Marion famous, so you’re going to have to go at some point. I’m not taking no for an answer.”

Ben sighed, sitting back in his chair. Something in his pocket dug into his hip, so he reached into it absently. He had apparently left Leslie’s arrowhead in the pocket of these pants since he had left Pawnee. He stared at it, debating to himself. 

Finally he looked up at Lauren. “I’ll think about it, okay?”

She stared hard at him. “Fine.” The she shook her head and moved toward the door, turning around just before she exited. “Remember we have that budget meeting with the city manager in an hour.” 

“Got it,” Ben replied, before returning his eyes to the arrowhead, which he had placed on his desk in front of him. Should he move on and accept the fact that Leslie Knope and Pawnee were no longer parts of his life, or was there still a chance that things could be okay?

Before Ben had even begun to make a decision, his phone rang.

“Ben Wyatt,” he answered distractedly.

“Ben! How _are_ you doing?” an enthusiastic voice called loudly through his speaker.

“Oh, Chris! Hey! What’s up?” Ben replied, a little surprised to hear from his old partner.

“I have a small request for you, if it’s possible,” Chris began. “Tomorrow, as you might know, is Bid Day for the Indiana State Little League Championship.”

“Oh yeah,” Ben replied. “I heard about that.”

“Exactly!” Chris continued exuberantly. “Well, I am sending a delegation from Pawnee to state our case, especially since we added that beautiful new field in Lafayette Park!” 

“Wait, there’s a baseball diamond in Lafayette Park?” Ben asked, confused.

“Oh, I assumed you knew about that,” Chris said, his voice dropping slightly. “Eagleton put up a fence around their side of the park, so Leslie started a whiffle ball league on the Pawnee side.”

“Eagleton put up a fence!” Ben nearly yelled, outraged. “It’s not like the Pawnee side is that bad; I mean we just cleaned it up a few weeks ago!”

“I know,” Chris replied, sympathetically. “But Eagleton did it anyway. Leslie was understandably outraged, and there was an incident, after which Leslie and one of her Eagleton counterparts both ended up in jail.”

“What?” Ben’s anger immediately became concern. “Why?”

“There was a garbage fight between Leslie and the other woman, who, I understand, was a former coworker of Leslie’s,” Chris explained. “Did Leslie really not tell you about this?” Chris asked after a beat.

Ben sighed, downcast. “I actually haven’t really been in touch with Leslie since I left.”

“Ah,” Chris said. “Well, that makes sense. I don’t think Leslie’s been herself lately. First there was that garbage fight, and then I know she and Ann got in a huge argument at the Snakehole last week. Tom debuted a new drink with enough alcohol to, I believe, _literally_ kill a person. Almost the entire Parks Department, as well as many other Pawnee residents, ended up very _very_ drunk, including Leslie. But I do think she’s been pretty off for the past few weeks, alcohol or not.”

“Oh,” Ben said, not quite sure how to respond.

“Anyway,” Chris continued as though he hadn’t just given Ben some very important information, “I’m sending Leslie and Ron to Indianapolis to try to win the Little League bid for Pawnee, but, I have to confess, I’m not quite sure that Ron’s the right guy for the job, and Leslie, as I said, has been off lately, so I don’t know how well it’s going to go. But I’m calling to ask you if you might like to come and help represent Pawnee!”

“Oh,” Ben said again, a little stunned by the request. “Wow. Um, I don’t know.”

“I’m sure you’re busy with the Marion budget and everything,” Chris said quickly, “but I really think you’re the perfect man for the job. You and Leslie are my dynamic duo; I’m one hundred percent certain that Pawnee could win that bid if you two would work together again.”

Ben wasn’t so sure how much of a dynamic due he and Leslie were anymore, but the idea of actually seeing his friend again was incredibly tempting. “I’ll see what I can do, Chris, but definitely don’t tell Leslie I might come, for real this time. I’m not sure if I can make it.”

Chris laughed on the other end of the line. “Well thanks for even thinking about it, and I hope you can go. But I’ll let you get back to work. Nice to talk to you, Ben!”

“Bye Chris,” Ben replied and hung up the phone.

Leslie hadn’t been herself lately? So it wasn’t just him? She actually still cared?

Suddenly Ben remembered his offer from Lauren to have lunch the next day. 

There was his choice: should he stay in Marion and make friends and move on, or should he go to Indianapolis and try to fix things with Leslie? She might get mad at him for coming or for having gone to Marion in the first place, or she might tell him that she had moved on and that he needed to do the same thing.

But, then again, she might not.

Ben stared at the arrowhead sitting on his desk. He already knew what he had to do.


	6. Going For It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading! One chapter left now!
> 
> Some dialogue is taken from "Road Trip."

Ben took a deep breath before he pulled open the door. As he stepped inside, his eyes scanned the room for the woman he had come to see. The space was crowded, and it took Ben a moment to find her, but there she was on the other side of the room: Leslie.

As soon as Chris had asked him to go to Indianapolis to help Leslie, Ben had known that that’s what he would do. He missed her so much, and he would have done anything to see her again and get a chance to really apologize and tell her how much she meant to him. Marion and new friends didn’t matter if he could get Leslie to talk to him again.

So Ben had pulled Lauren aside before their budget meeting and told her that he wouldn’t be able to make lunch the next day. “Something came up,” he had said, “I have to go to Indy.”

Lauren had looked confused and started to ask for details, but Ben had already been halfway out the door.

He had told the same thing to Martin and the Marion city manager, and he had gotten a similar confused look from Martin, but Ben still hadn’t explained himself.

He had spent the day nervously tapping his foot against the floor, trying in vain to concentrate on the budget. But how could he? He was going to Leslie! 

Ben had spent that night going through exactly what he needed to tell his friend. How sorry he was. How much he missed her. How much she meant to him. How he would leave her alone if that’s what she wanted. It would be hard, but it needed to be done.

He had left the hotel the next morning just after ten, since he had found out that the presentations started at one. He knew that Leslie would undoubtedly arrive early, so he had figured his driving time, plus lunch, would put them arriving around the same time.

And it had worked out just like Ben had planned. He had grabbed lunch at a burger place in Indy and milled around for a while until he finally had entered the building where the presentations were going to be held. He had stopped at delegation check-in and asked if Pawnee had arrived, and he had been relieved, and nervous, to hear that Leslie and Ron were already there. 

So he had walked down the hall as directed and opened the door and looked for Leslie.

Leslie’s blonde hair stood out across the room. She was holding several pieces of poster board, and she kept glancing at her watch nervously. Ron was beside her, his face blank. Ben could tell he really didn’t want to be there. 

Ben began walking toward them, his legs moving automatically. His eyes stayed locked on Leslie, though he did notice that there was a buffet along one side of the room that seemed to be serving bacon-wrapped shrimp. 

When he was about ten feet from her and she still hadn’t noticed him, he finally spoke. 

“Leslie.” His voice cut through the chatter all around them.

She turned around and immediately dropped the posters she was holding, her eyes widening. “Ben?”

She looked surprised, but not upset. In fact, she seemed almost happy to see him. 

Ben’s lips curled into a smile. “Hey. Thought you could use some help.” 

“What?” Leslie replied, breathlessly, her head tilted to the side slightly in confusion.

“Chris called me yesterday and asked if I could come help with the Pawnee bid,” Ben explained. “So, here I am.”

“You came here just to help with this?” Leslie asked, the corners of her mouth turning upward.

Ben shrugged. “Well, to help with the bid and to see you.” 

Leslie’s smile grew wider, and Ben could have sworn he saw her cheeks turn slightly pink before she turned her eyes to the ground.

Ben directed his attention to the man beside Leslie. “Hey, Ron.”

“Hello, Ben,” Ron replied stiffly. “I do not want to be here.”

“I can do the presentation with Leslie, if you want,” Ben offered casually. “And there’s bacon-wrapped shrimp on that buffet table over there behind all those people.”

Finally emotion entered Ron’s face. “Bacon-wrapped shrimp? Excuse me, I’m going to go find a platter.” He stalked away, a hungry look in his eyes.

Ben was left alone with Leslie.

“Leslie, there’s something I have to tell you-”

“Ben we have to talk about something-” 

They both spoke at the exact same moment, and then laughed.

“You go,” Leslie said nodding to him with a smile.

This was it. He began again. “I’m so sorry for everything back in Pawnee. Chris asked me about the job, and I wouldn’t even let myself think about it because I was supposed to go to Marion in 2 days, and then I didn’t want to have to explain it to you because I just wanted to stay in our happy little bubble where I didn’t have to leave and I could just help you with parks maintenance and we could go to the zoo and go bowling. But I should have told you everything. You’re such an important person to me, and I shouldn’t have tried to hide it from you. I’m just so sorry. And I can’t even tell you how much I’ve missed your emails and your phone calls while I’ve been in Marion. I’ve been throwing myself into budget problems for weeks now, and, as much fun as it is, I’d rather be back in Richmond in that god-awful parks department with emails from you waiting for me after work than in Marion with some sort-of friends but no contact with you.” He took a deep breath. “If you don’t want to be friends anymore, I understand, but, if you can forgive me, could we try to fix this? I hate it so much.” He finally stopped and looked to see what effect his words had had on Leslie.

She stared at him for a moment, processing what he had said, before a smile began to creep onto her face. “We can definitely try to fix this because I hate it too,” she said softly. 

“Really?” Ben grinned down at her.

She laughed. “Of course! These past three weeks have totally sucked! Did Chris tell you about Lafayette Park?” 

“Yeah!” Ben said, instantly angry. “How could Eagleton do something like that?”

“Because Eagleton’s the land of rich snobby jerks, that’s why!” Leslie said indignantly. “They’re the worst!”

“That was a _really_ terrible thing to do,” Ben said, not wanting to stoop to name-calling. “But I heard you made the best of it with that Whiffle Ball League.”

Leslie smiled, clearly proud of herself.

“I also heard you went to jail?” Ben continued questioningly. 

Leslie looked down at her feet sheepishly. “Like I said, it’s been a rough few weeks.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about any of this stuff?” Ben asked, his tone soft. 

Leslie looked up at him. “Because I thought it was best if I moved on, you know? Like I said your last night in Pawnee, I couldn’t just sit around getting my hopes up that you’d come back again and actually stay. I figured it would be better to let you just be that auditor guy who came for six months and then left, no big deal. But that was harder than I thought it would be. And that brings me to my apology.” She took a deep breath. “That night, it really wasn’t about you telling me or not telling me about the offer; it was about this idea I had that if I showed you all the best parts of Pawnee again that you’d remember how awesome a town it was and decide to stay, but then that whole thing completely ruined my plan, and I was just really upset, so I took it out on you. You made a commitment, and you had to stick with it; that’s the kind of person you are, and that’s why you’re such a great friend. And now I know you can’t come back to Pawnee, but I would love it if we could start talking again and you could come back to visit sometimes. I promise to not get too angry when my attempts to get you to stay fail.” She smiled at him hesitantly. 

And he smiled back. “I would love that.”

When Leslie threw her arms around him this time, I wasn’t like that awkward hug in the Pawnee Super Suites parking lot. This felt normal. This felt _right_. 

Ben pulled her closer to him unconsciously. He was pretty sure that having Leslie in his arms was the greatest feeling in the world.

There was a sound of a throat clearing, and he and Leslie jumped apart.

“So, you two are friends again?” Ron said, the ghost of a smile just visible under his mustache.

“Yeah,” Leslie said, smiling sideways at Ben. “We talked about it, and-”

“I don’t care,” Ron interrupted. “I have also acquired a platter of bacon-wrapped shrimp.”

Sure enough, Ron was holding a silver tray loaded with the meat-covered seafood.

Before Ben could respond, he heard his name being called from behind him. 

He turned around. “Good lord,” he said, quiet enough that no one except Leslie heard him.

“I thought that was you, Ben!” said the dark-haired woman approaching him. “Long time, no see huh?” She laughed loudly. “What are you doing here? I’d heard you were in Marion hacking up the budget. They’re not bidding to host the Little League Tournament, are they?”

“No, they’re not,” Ben affirmed before continuing. “I’m technically in Marion,” he explained, really wishing he could run away from the conversation, “but I’m here today to help represent Pawnee.” He gestured to Leslie and Ron beside him. “This is Leslie Knope, Pawnee Parks Deputy Director and Ron Swanson, Parks Director. Leslie and Ron, this is Bridgette Evans, Deputy Director of the Richmond Parks Department.”

Leslie’s eyes grew huge in realization. “Oh, wow. Bridgette Evans.” She held out her hand to the other woman. “Ben’s told me so much about you.”

Ben shook his head at Leslie as she shook Bridgette’s hand. This line of conversation could only end badly.

Bridgette glanced over at Ben, a flicker of worry in her eyes. “Oh really?” She seemed to be remembering her last real encounter with Ben in which she had casually asked him out on a date and he had babbled for a moment before running out of the room.

Ben opened and closed his mouth wordlessly, not quite sure how to recover.

“Well, by ‘so much’ I really just meant that he told me he was working with you when he was in Richmond and that you were the deputy director there,” Leslie cut in, saving him.

Bridgette visibly relaxed. “Oh, okay.” She turned back to Ben. “I didn’t know you were so close with Pawnee.” She raised her eyebrows slightly. 

Ben had to smile. “I tried not to talk about it too much while I was in Richmond, just because I knew I would just go on and on about how much I missed living there and how great a city it is. It’s kind of my adopted hometown, even though I was only there for about six months.”

Leslie beamed at him. 

“Oh,” Bridgette said in response, slightly taken aback. She glanced between him and Leslie for a moment inquisitively, as though to ask if something was going on between them. Ben pretended not to notice. 

“There you are, Bridgette,” A mustachioed man approached them. “I’ve been looking all over fo-” He stopped, noticing Ben. “Ben! Good to see you!” he said as he reached them.

“Hey John, nice to see you too,” Ben said to the other man genuinely as he shook his hand. “This is Leslie Knope and Ron Swanson,” he gestured to his friends as he had done a moment before, “you and Bridgette’s counterparts from Pawnee. Leslie and Ron, this is John Peterson, Richmond Parks Director.”

John inclined his head at Leslie and Ron in greeting before returning his attention to Ben. “What are you doing here?”

“Helping to represent Pawnee,” Ben answered simply, throwing a small smile at Leslie.

John merely nodded, never having been one for discussing personal lives with coworkers or with former coworkers. But then his eyes moved past Ben and zeroed in on something slightly behind him. 

“Excuse me, Ron was it?” John said carefully. “Are those bacon-wrapped shrimp?”

“They are indeed,” Ron said, a distinct happiness in his voice as he popped another one into his mouth. 

“I love bacon-wrapped shrimp,” John replied, getting excited.

Ron began to glare at John as though daring him to ask if he could have one, but it seemed John had different ideas. 

“Where did you get that platter?” John asked. “I’ll have to go find one.”

Ron blinked in slight confusion before gesturing to his right with a shrimp-filled hand.

John nodded in thanks and hurried away. 

Ben and Leslie exchanged glances. Ben had always thought that Ron and John would make good friends, as long as John didn’t bring up his appreciation of compromise and of running an effective branch of government.

Bridgette stood in front of he and Leslie awkwardly for a moment until Ben finally spoke.

“So Richmond’s still doing well then?” he asked, politely, not that he cared all that much.

Bridgette began to nod quickly. “Even with _John_ at the head, the Parks Department’s doing well.” She rolled her eyes at John’s name, conveying her distaste for the other man.

Ben wanted to roll his eyes at _her_.

At that moment, John returned with his own platter of bacon-wrapped shrimp. “These are truly wonderful.”

“Amen,” Ron replied, nearly finished with his plate.

“You know the only thing that would make this better?” John asked, more to Ron than anyone. 

“Alcohol,” both men said at the same time.

John grinned, and Ron’s mustache turned up at the corners.

“There’s an open bar over there,” John gestured across the room. 

“You think they have scotch?” Ron asked. 

John shrugged. “They better. 

Ron began to smile visibly. “Well, what are we waiting for?”

John nodded in affirmation, and the two men moved across the room, John carrying his still three-quarters full platter of seafood.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Leslie and Ben doubled over in laughter.

“Ron made a friend!” Leslie said grinning widely, her hand on Ben’s arm for support. 

“I just hope Ron doesn’t find out about John’s management strategy, or the fact that he actually _has_ a management strategy,” Ben replied, his hand on Leslie’s shoulder. 

“Oh yeah,” Leslie said, as she turned to watch the two men over at the bar, “you said John’s not a Ron Swanson Libertarian.”

Ben shook his head, still laughing. “Nope. But they have scotch and bacon-wrapped shrimp, maybe it’ll work out.” 

“What’s so funny?” Bridgette asked beside them. Ben had almost forgotten she was there. 

“Oh, you don’t know Ron,” Ben explained. “He’s a huge libertarian, hates all forms of government. He was pretty helpful when we were trying to cut the Pawnee budget. He actually brought pennants and started chanting ‘Slash it! Slash it!’ in our meetings, well until I tried to cut Leslie.” He smiled at his friend who smirked back at him. “Then Ron told me that I couldn’t cut her because nothing would get done in the Parks Department without her. And then I said that every department was losing a Leslie Knope, and Ron said that no other department had one to begin with. And he was right. The next budget meeting Leslie was there representing Parks instead of Ron. She’s the one who really does all the work in the department, and she’s really _really_ great at it.”

Leslie nudged him with her elbow. “Aw, thanks.” 

Bridgette was staring down at Leslie with a confused look on her face. “So _you_ do all the work, but you’re still just the deputy director? Ron doesn’t even _want_ to work for the government, but he’s technically in charge of the department?”

Leslie nodded back brightly. “Yeah, pretty much.” 

“But why don’t you have his job then? Everyone must know that he doesn’t do anything. I’m sure you can complain to the city manager about it,” Bridgette tried to advise Leslie.

Leslie responded with a half smile. “Ron’s one of my greatest friends, and it works well this way. I could never go over his head for anything!” Leslie laughed as though entertained by the thought. “Ron’s a great director, even though he doesn’t do any work, and I’m his loyal colleague and his emotional protector. I would never do anything to go against Ron or anyone else in my department. We’ve got each other’s backs down in Pawnee. We help each other out. Don’t you do that over in Richmond?”

Ben almost gasped at Leslie’s jab at Bridgette at the end of her description of her and Ron’s relationship. Bridgette was staring at Leslie, open-mouthed and clearly offended. Leslie, however, looked smug. She glanced up at Ben and winked. Ben’s shocked expression turned into a wide grin. Only Leslie Knope could deliver a blow like that to a woman she had never met just because of stuff that Ben had told her. Leslie was so amazing. 

Ben sucked in his breath quickly as he was suddenly hit with the realization that his feelings for Leslie were more than the not-so-little crush on a great friend that he had been aware of for several months. This was bigger than that. In that moment, he was almost completely certain that he was in love with Leslie Knope.

And, as Leslie offered Bridgette Evans a fake-sincere smile, Ben knew for sure: he loved her. A lot.

_Well that makes things a little more complicated_ , Ben thought to himself as he stared at his wonderful friend. A complication like this should have made Ben worry, but he just smiled wider. He wondered if she felt the same way about him. Certainly she must have felt _something_ like this, though Ben didn’t know if she would go so far as to say that she was in love with him. He was almost totally sure that this wasn’t just him.

“The delegation from Richmond!” A voice called from the other side of the hall.

“Well that’s you, Bridgette,” Ben said, trying as hard as possibly to keep a straight face. “Good luck in there.” 

“Yeah, good luck, Bridgette!” Leslie chimed in with a fake sweetness.

John came over to meet her, his bacon-wrapped shrimp tray gone and Ron still at his side. “Let’s get this over with,” John said, shaking his head. He turned to Ron quickly. “Very good to meet you, Ron.” 

“Likewise,” Ron replied with a curt nod as he shook the other man’s hand. 

With a wave to Ben, John stalked away, Bridgette trailing behind him, still speechless.

Ben turned to Leslie, finally allowing himself to smile. “Oh, that was mean,” he said, laughter in his voice. 

“It was a legitimate question,” Leslie replied innocently, though her eyes gave her away. “That was payback for how much she annoyed you in Richmond.” Leslie winked at him again.

“You’re the best,” Ben replied holding his hand out for a high five.

Leslie responded with their old finger-guns handshake. Ben was pretty sure he could smile at Leslie forever. 

“I like your friend John,” Ron said, his tone impersonal as always, but his words carrying a great deal of weight.

Ben nodded at him. “I figured you would. He always reminded me of you. Did you guys talk about the government, by any chance?”

Leslie’s eyes grew wide with interest as she stared at Ron.

Ron’s mustache turned downward. “Yes we did, and I do not agree with him. However, he enjoys scotch, solitude, and bacon-wrapped shrimp, so I can overlook our philosophical differences.” 

Ben and Leslie both broke into huge smiles.

“That’s great Ron!” Leslie said, excited. “And you said you didn’t want to come today.”

Ron grumbled something in reply and then moved away, presumably to find more food.

“So,” Leslie said after a moment, “how have you been been? You have to tell me everything.”

Ben grinned at her and looked around, spotting a couple of open chairs. “You want to go sit down?”

Leslie smiled. “Yeah, definitely.”

Ben told Leslie all about Marion, the budget he had been pouring over for the past almost three weeks, and the kind-of-friends that he had met in the new town.

“Lauren’s great,” Ben said, so happy to finally be talking to Leslie about everything going on with him. “She has an accounting background, so she totally gets all the budget stuff, which is really helpful. She never asks for anything for Parks unless it’s 100% fiscally responsible and actually _makes_ the government money. She’s been great to work with.” 

“Hmm,” Leslie replied with a nod and a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

Ben eyed his friend, confused, but Leslie didn’t say anything else so Ben continued.

“The whole department’s been really welcoming since I do so much of my work with them. They’ve asked me to hang out with them after work a bunch of times, but I always say no. Actually Lauren asked me to get lunch today, but I turned that down.”

Leslie looked up at him, more alert. “Why?”

Ben stared at her almost incredulously. “Well, I had to come see you and help Pawnee didn’t I?” He grinned. “Besides, I think it would feel weird to be hanging out with another Parks Department when I already have one, you know?” He nudged Leslie with his elbow. 

“But it sounds like this _Lauren_ ’s your new best friend,” Leslie said, an edge to her voice.

Ben suddenly realized something. “Leslie Knope, are you _jealous_?”

“What? No! Shut up!” Leslie replied quickly, ducking her head.

Ben laughed as he watched her, unable to think about anything but how adorable she was. “Leslie, you know Pawnee’s basically my hometown; three weeks in Marion, or anywhere else for that matter, can’t replace that. And no matter how much accounting experience someone else has or how much I like working with them, no one’s like you. Would Lauren Campbell plan a Marion Extravaganza if I came to visit for three days after being gone for over a month? I don’t think so.”

“Well, in her defense, I wouldn’t have done that for you when I had only known you three weeks,” Leslie said seriously.

Ben nodded, acknowledging her point. “I guess that’s true, but I could have at least seen you doing something like that for someone, even when I’d only known you for a few weeks and I was still ‘Mean Ben’ sometimes.”

“You still _are_ Mean Ben sometimes.” Leslie’s eyes sparkled at him jokingly.

“Hey!” Ben said defensively. “Not true!”

 Leslie shrugged noncommittally, and Ben punched her arm lightly in retaliation. 

“But seriously,” Ben said returning to their previous topic, “Lauren just agrees with me on everything, and while that’s really great and makes it so much easier to get stuff done, it takes all the fun out of it. As absolutely infuriating as you were at the beginning, I can’t say I didn’t at least kind of enjoy it.

Leslie smiled softly at him. “Yeah, me too.”

“So, Pawnee!” Ben said, honestly extremely curious about his adopted hometown. “How’s everything?”

Leslie recounted to him the entirety of the Lafayette Park fence saga, including a blow-by-blow account of her fight with Lindsay Carlisle Shay and the full backstory of Leslie’s relationship with the other woman. She told him all about Tom’s new, highly dangerous, alcoholic beverage, Snakejuice, and all the trouble it had caused. And she almost shouted at him that Ann was the new director of the Health Department so she officially worked at city hall part-time.

Ben had to grin at Leslie’s excitement. He had never met anyone with anywhere near Leslie’s level of enthusiasm about anything, and the fact that she cared enough about him to direct some of that enthusiasm towards him never ceased to amaze him.

“Has Chris hired a new Assistant City Manager yet?” Ben asked as casually as he could.

Leslie shook her head, and Ben’s heart leapt. “It’s like if you couldn’t take the job, no one could,” Leslie said, a sadness in her voice.

“Well then maybe I will,” Ben said with a half-smile. 

“What?” Leslie stared at him, confused.

“Chris told you that he was going to ask me to take the job after I finish in Marion if he doesn’t find anyone else, right?” Ben asked, unsure as to why Leslie seemed so bewildered.

“Seriously?” Leslie almost yelled in response. “That would be so great!”

“Yeah. Why didn’t he tell you about that?” Ben wondered, his eyes narrowed. “I feel like that would have helped dig me out of that mess from three weeks ago.”

Leslie shrugged slightly. “Chris has been kind of avoiding the subject of you since you left. I should probably apologize to him for that. I kind of yelled at him and slammed the door in his face that night.”

Ben laughed. “I think Chris is okay about it, don’t worry. But yeah, I don’t know if it could even happen, but it’s a possibility.”

“I’d love that possibility,” she replied, smiling at the ground.

“Me too.”

Time passed quickly. Ben saw the Richmond delegation leaving very soon after their meeting had ended, Bridgette scowling while John stopped to talk to Ron. Teams from cities all over Indiana were called up around them, but Ben wasn’t nervous. Leslie briefed him on all the Pawnee Little League facts that they would need for the presentation, and Ben could tell that Pawnee genuinely would be a great host for the tournament. But, Pawnee was an amazing place in general, and Ben just needed to get that idea across. Pawnee was home of the most wonderful woman Ben had ever met, and that alone made it exceptional. 

Finally, one of the members of the selection committee came out and called up the Pawnee delegation.

Ben offered the woman a wave of acknowledgement as he and Leslie stood up and collected their things.

Ron offered them an encouraging nod from across the room where he was somehow still eating.

“You ready?” Ben asked Leslie as they walked across the room and entered a different one following the woman who had called them. 

Leslie grinned, her face set and her eyes determined. “Always.”

Leslie set up her poster boards and presented the information, Ben providing extra facts and offering reasoning for why Pawnee would be the best location for the tournament. 

After Leslie pacified the committee’s concerns about the Pawnee raccoon problem, the woman who had called them in offered one final question.

“Muncie is larger. Bloomington is more central. What’s the advantage of doing it in Pawnee?”

Ben stepped forward slightly. “The advantage is that it’s a wonderful city. I mean, look, I’ve been to 40-some odd towns in Indiana, and Pawnee is special.” Ben was momentarily brought back to his first week in Pawnee when he had vehemently informed Leslie that Pawnee was not special. He had been so wrong.

He continued. “I’ve spent the past two months in Marion and Richmond, and they’re fine towns, but nowhere else in Indiana compares to Pawnee. It’s the only place where I’ve ever felt at home in all my years working for the state government, and there’s a reason for that. In Pawnee, the people are passionate and kind. They love their city. They take pride in their work. It’s a very very special place.” As much as Ben did genuinely love Pawnee, his last few remarks weren’t really about the town; they were about Leslie. They were always about Leslie.

There was a silence as Ben’s words settled over the committee members. 

“Thank you very much Ben and Leslie,” the woman who had asked the question said finally as she stood up. “We have one more town to hear from, and then we’ll give our decision. But I’d stick around if you were you.” She smiled at them before showing them out of the room.

Ben finally let himself look over at Leslie. She was smiling at the ground, off in another world.

“I think we might have just won,” Ben said quietly, jerking Leslie out of whatever trance she was in.

“Yeah, I think we might have,” Leslie said with a quick breath.

Footsteps approached them, and they both turned around.

“I trust that your presentation was satisfactory,” Ron said dispassionately. 

“They have one more town to hear from, and then they’ll let us know, but they told us to stick around, so that seems promising,” Ben explained.

Ron nodded in understanding. “So we shouldn’t have to wait too long then, right? I was promised a steak dinner.” 

Ben narrowed his eyes at the other man. “Ron, you’ve been eating nonstop for over three hours.”

“So?” 

The trio stood in relative silence for a while. Ben watched Leslie out of the corner of his eye. Her small smile seemed to be hiding a much larger one that slipped out occasionally when she thought Ben wasn’t looking. Ben took this as a good sign.

Finally, after what felt like hours, though it couldn’t have been more than thirty minutes, the four-member committee came out to the large room. Only about five delegations remained milling around the hall. Ben and Leslie glanced at each other nervously.

“The host of this year’s Indiana State Little League Tournament will be Pawnee,” the woman announced. 

“YES!” Ben and Leslie shouted simultaneously, high-fiving. He pulled her in for a hug, incredibly happy.

“Very good,” Ron said, giving Leslie and Ben a rare smile. “Now can we eat?

“I should call Chris and tell him the good news first,” Ben said pulling out his phone. “Give me a minute.”

He pulled up Chris’s contact and pressed call, moving away from his friends as he flashed Leslie a smile.

“Chris Traeger!” the voice on the other end rang out.

“Hey Chris, it’s Ben.”

“Ben Wyatt! Is this good news?” Chris asked excitedly.

“Yeah, it is. Leslie and I got the bid!” Ben replied, thrilled.

“You went!” Chris cheered. “And that’s _literally_ the greatest news I have ever heard! I told you that you two are a dream team!”

“Yeah.” Ben smiled. “I think we are.”

“Well, I won’t keep you, go celebrate!” Chris said, the wide smile that accompanied his words clearly evident in his voice. “But pass my congratulations to Leslie. Together, you two are unstoppable!”

“Thanks, Chris,” Ben replied. “I’ll talk to you later. Bye.”

Ben hung up and made his way back over to Leslie who was finalizing details with the Little League committee.

“Nice presentation,” one of the men on the committee said, shaking Ben’s hand.

“Thank you,” Ben replied, and he and Leslie separated from the group to grab celebratory drinks and head over to where Ron was waiting.

“Chris says congratulations and together we’re unstoppable!” Ben quoted to Leslie, laughing after they grabbed champagne flutes from the bar.

Leslie smiled. “Well cheers, sir!”

They clinked glasses.

“You did it!” Leslie said, her grin stretching across her face.

“No, you did it,” Ben corrected.

“No,” Leslie said, actually serious, “normally I do it, but this time you did it. You should take the praise.” 

“Alright,” Ben said, grinning sheepishly.

A photographer asked to take their picture, and then they rejoined Ron.

Mulligan’s Steak House was no longer open for business, but Ron had another restaurant in mind, though not one he loved as much as the other steakhouse. Apparently it was Chris and Leslie’s promise to him that they could go get dinner at this particular establishment after the bid that had made him agree to come at all.

“You mind if I ride with you?” Leslie said casually to Ben as they trailed after Ron heading to the parking lot.

Ben grinned. “Not at all.”

A few minutes later Leslie and Ben found themselves in Ben’s car following Ron to the restaurant. A comfortable silence fell between them. 

“You were really great in that presentation earlier,” Leslie said after a few moments. 

“Thanks,” Ben replied genuinely.

“I liked the stuff you said about Pawnee,” she continued, almost hesitantly. “That was really nice to hear.” 

“Well, Pawnee is a really special town. I loved living there, and I still miss it everyday.” Ben paused for a moment, choosing his words. This seemed as good a moment as any to let Leslie know how he felt. He was just gonna go for it. “And I would always look forward to the moments in my day where I’d get to hang out with the town and talk to the town about stuff. I still do actually.”

Leslie smiled at him from the passenger seat, clearly understanding everything he was implying.

“And the town has really nice blonde hair too,” Ben kept going as Leslie’s smile grew wider, “and has read a shocking number of political biographies for a town, which I like.”

“Oh God,” Leslie said, her face falling slightly. 

“I’m sorry,” Ben said automatically. “I know this is weird since I don’t even live in Pawnee anymore, and we hadn’t spoken in three weeks until today, but I can’t take this anymore, and I feel like we have to at least talk about it.” Ben was suddenly nervous. “I mean it’s not just me… right?” 

A small smile crept onto Leslie’s face. “No, it’s not just you.” 

Before Ben could reply, Leslie pointed out the window. “There’s the restaurant. Looks like Ron’s already heading inside.” 

Sure enough, the figure of their friend was racing down the sidewalk, a child-like grin spread across his face.

Ben parked his car and got out, Leslie following suit. Neither one of them spoke, but a small smile remained on Leslie’s lips.

The entered the restaurant and were flagged down by Ron who was somehow already ordering.

Ben and Leslie took seats side-by-side across from Ron, who was grinning eagerly. Leslie’s knee brushed Ben’s under the table, and he felt a little jolt go through him. Leslie liked him, and she had actually told him that herself! He definitely wasn’t going to mention that he was in love with her, especially at this stage in the game, but this was enough. 

Dinner was filled with laughter at each other’s stories, small smiles, and accidental touches - a misplaced elbow or a hand that lingered just slightly too long. Ron, of course, was far too engrossed in his own meal to pay attention to his companions. 

Ben wished Ron wasn’t there so he and Leslie could talk by themselves. They needed to figure out what they were going to do, and Ben really just wanted to kiss her stupid smiling face. 

As the meal came to a close, Ben decided he had to do something. He was about ask Leslie if she wanted to go get some air just to get her alone, but a voice behind their table stopped him.

“Ben! Leslie! Ron!”

Ben looked around. “Chris? What are you doing here?” 

“When you told me that you had won the bid, I was _wildly_ ecstatic, and I had to come up and celebrate with you!” he explained, sitting down in the empty chair next to Ron. 

Ron made no acknowledgement of Chris’s presence except a low almost growl as he scooted his chair slightly away from the other man.

“There is _literally_ nothing in this world that you cannot do,” Chris looked from Ben to Leslie enthusiastically.

_Except talk to each other alone apparently_ , Ben amended Chris’s statement in his head. He sighed and offered a half smile to Leslie who returned it. 

“So what’s the plan now?” Chris continued as though Ben and Leslie were just as enthusiastic about having him there as he was to be there. “Should we take a long walk?” He gasped suddenly in apparent realization. “Mini golf!” 

Ben looked at his watch. The bid at the state house had taken a lot longer than he had expected, and a steak dinner with Ron Swanson was always a length affair, so it was getting late.

“I might have to head back to Marion soon, actually,” Ben said, his face falling as he looked at Leslie. 

“Yeah, I guess Ron and I should head back to Pawnee too,” she replied, her expression matching Ben’s. 

“Nonsense!” Chris said, interrupting their moment. “There’s no reason to drive all the way back; I have a perfectly good condo right here in the city.”

“Oh, we couldn’t put you out like that,” Leslie said, clearly not excited to spend extra time with Chris. 

“Double nonsense!” Chris objected immediately. “I would love to have you stay with me.” 

Ben sighed heavily. “Well, either way, I do have to go back to Marion. I already missed a day of work to come down here, and I know they’ll need me bright and early tomorrow.”

“Oh, that’s terrible!” Chris said emphatically. “I was hoping we could talk!” After a moment of disappointment, Chris perked back up. “Well, Leslie you can take my guestroom, and Ron you _have_ to sleep on my couch. It is _literally_ the comfiest couch you’ve ever been on.”

Ron grunted his disapproval, but Chris ignored him. 

“I guess that’s settled then,” Leslie said, resigned, glancing sideways at Ben.

They paid the bill and headed back to the parking lot.

“Good to see you, Ben,” Ron said shaking Ben’s hand firmly.

Ben was a little taken aback by Ron’s friendliness, but after a small glance from Ron at Leslie, Ben understood. Despite Ron’s hard exterior, he truly cared about Leslie, so that nicety and the handshake constituted Ron’s approval of Ben and Leslie’s renewed friendship, or whatever this was going to be. Ben was touched. 

Chris gave him a huge hug, clapping him on the back. “Glad to see everything’s going well for you.” He too glanced at Leslie.

Ben nodded. “Yeah, it is.” 

Chris lowered his voice. “Anytime you want to come back for good, just say the word and the Assistant City Manager job is yours.”

“Thanks, man. I’ll definitely let you know.”

Chris stepped back to let Leslie and Ben talk semi-privately.

“So,” she said almost shyly.

Ben grinned. “So.”

“I’ll email you tomorrow,” she said. “Let you know how much fun we had at Chris’s.”

Ben laughed. “Please do. I’ll be waiting.” 

She wrapped her arms around him, and Ben pulled her close to him. 

“Okay, we’ll talk soon,” she said as they finally broke apart.

“Absolutely,” he affirmed.

Before she moved back from him, Ben grabbed her hand to stop her.

“Wait.” He reached his free hand into his pocket and pulled out the arrowhead Leslie had given him nearly three weeks before. “Have this.” He pressed it into her hand.

Leslie’s face lit up when she saw what it was. “You kept it?”

Ben grinned sheepishly. “I’ve had it in my pocket ever since I left.”

Leslie moved toward him and hugged him again, quickly this time, before moving to join Ron and Chris. “Night, Ben.”

“Night, Leslie.” 

He got in his car and pulled out of the parking lot, his eyes following Leslie in his rearview mirror.

She waved to him, a smile on her lips and her other hand still clutched around the arrowhead.

As she and their other friends disappeared behind him, Ben let out a breath. He had thought saying goodbye to Leslie Knope was hard before, but now that he knew she liked him too, it was almost impossible. 

He turned on the radio and settled in for the drive. This wouldn’t be easy.


	7. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for reading this story. All your comments have absolutely meant the world to me. Writing this really helped me get through the first half of this semester, and it's been so much fun, plus I now possess a halfway decent knowledge of Indiana State geography. I can't believe Parks is ending in 10 days, but I'm really glad I got to write this, and I'll be definitely doing more Parks stuff in the very near future.

Ben pulled into the parking lot of the hotel in Marion, his face expressionless. As he got out of his car he checked his phone.

Leslie had texted him. “Let me know you got back safe.” 

Ben grinned. He was so in love with this amazing woman. He quickly replied. “Back in Marion, safe and sound. Have fun with Chris and Ron!”

His phone vibrated as he entered his room. 

“Thanks I’ll try ;)” 

Ben wanted to reply with a joke about Chris or start a conversation, but as he turned on his laptop, he found that Laruen had emailed him several budget proposals that she wanted him to take a look at before tomorrow when they apparently had a meeting with all the department heads. Staying up late talking to Leslie wasn’t going to happen tonight. 

Sighing, he pulled out his phone to send one last text. “Night Leslie. Talk to you tomorrow :)”

Almost instantly came the reply. “Of course :) Night Ben.”

Ben started pouring through the proposals, but he knew his heart wasn’t in it. His heart, of course, was with a woman an hour and a half away in Indianapolis staying in his former auditing partner’s guest bedroom. 

After an hour of little to no progress, Ben quit working and pulled up the Internet with the intention of scanning through some message boards to take his mind off things. Instead, Ben found himself looking up the Indiana State Little League Tournament. There was a small article about Pawnee winning the bid, and accompanying it was a picture of him and Leslie. They both looked so happy, and Ben made a mental note to get a copy of the picture to stick in the scrapbook Leslie had given him all those months before. Maybe soon they would get to start a whole new scrapbook together; actually, Ben was fairly certain Leslie already had. He would have bet anything that those three days he had spent in Pawnee three weeks before were well chronicled somewhere.

But, without Leslie’s scrapbooking skills nearby or an actual printer, Ben just settled for downloading the picture and making it his computer background. 

After returning to the proposals one last time, in vain, he shut his computer, threw on some pajamas, and got ready for bed. It was back to business as usual again tomorrow; he needed to focus. 

But by noon the following day, Ben knew that focusing was pretty much impossible. He was checking his inbox every few minutes to see if Leslie had emailed him, and he kept doing the same thing with his phone to see if she had sent him a text. His mind kept drifting back to he and Leslie’s conversation in the car on the way to the restaurant and those lovely little words “it’s not just you.” Ben was long gone. Every moment he spent at his desk was torture. Leslie was back in Pawnee probably by now, and he was in love with her, and why in the world was he in Marion?

Ben had managed to avoid talking to anyone all morning, but his luck ran out as there was a knock on his door.

“You missed the meeting, Wyatt,” Lauren said from the doorway, her eyes narrowed, searching him. “You’ve never missed a meeting.” 

“What?” Ben said pulling his head out of the clouds. “We had a meeting?” 

Lauren nodded, her searching expression now looking more worried than anything. “Yeah, with all the departments and the city manager? I emailed you about it yesterday?”

“Oh my God, I completely forgot!” Ben said, running his hand through his hair.

Bridgette shrugged as if to say it was no big deal. “Martin covered for you, and everything went fine, but what’s up with you? You don’t seem like yourself.” She walked into the office and sat down in the chair in front of Ben’s desk.

“I’m fine,” he lied badly.

Lauren clearly didn’t believe him. “What were you doing in Indy yesterday?”

“I had to help some friends,” he said vaguely. That was technically true.

“What friends?” she asked, staring hard at him. 

Before Ben could answer someone else appeared at his door.

“Hey congrats on the Pawnee bid!” Martin’s wide grin met Ben and Lauren in the doorway. “I was talking to one of my buddies who’s on the selection committee yesterday, and he just happened to mention that ‘some state auditor named Ben Wyatt’ gave an amazing presentation for Pawnee. You could have told us that’s what you were doing!”

Lauren turned from Martin back to Ben. “Wait, Pawnee’s bid for what?”

“The State Little League Tournament,” Ben answered, not looking at Lauren’s face.

Lauren raised her eyebrows. “You skipped a day of work and drove to Indy for a bid on the State _Little League_ Tournament?” she asked skeptically.

Ben shrugged. “It was for Pawnee.” 

Lauren’s expression didn’t change. “So? That’s just one of the towns you stayed in right? What’s the big deal?”

“Ben’s pretty close with the government in Pawnee, the Parks Department in particular,” Martin explained from behind her.

Ben nodded. That pretty much summed it up.

“So how does you helping Pawnee get the Tournament bid make you forget your meeting today?” Lauren asked, confused.

Ben saw Martin smirk behind Lauren. Martin had always seemed to have suspicions about Ben and Leslie. He was right of course, but Ben didn’t need him to know that.

“Just kind of preoccupied I guess,” Ben said ambiguously.

Lauren stood up and rolled her eyes. “You’re being really weird, Wyatt. Shape up and eat some lunch. I’ll be back later so we can actually go over those proposals. One o’clock!” She marched out of the room without looking back.

Martin was still smirking as he waltzed into the room. “Something on your mind, Ben?” he asked would-be-casually. 

Ben rolled his eyes and changed the subject. “Guess who I ran into in Indy before our presentation.” 

Martin shrugged curiously as he sat down across from him in the chair Lauren had just vacated.

“Old friend of ours from Richmond,” Ben elaborated slightly, waiting for Martin to understand.

Martin’s eyes went wide. “Bridgette Evans was there?”

Ben nodded seriously. “Yeah she was. John too.” 

“How did that go?” Martin asked, clearly entertained.

“Pretty well actually.” Ben smiled at the memory. “Leslie lectured her about the importance of loyalty and community and then ended with a jab about Bridgette’s lack of respect for her colleagues. It completely shut her up.” 

Martin laughed appreciatively. “Nice for someone to finally take her down a peg.” But Martin quickly steered the conversation back to its original trajectory. “So it must have been good to see Leslie then?”

Ben sighed. Besides mentions of phone calls and emails and the brief account he had given Martin of his three-day visit to Pawnee, Ben really hadn’t told Martin much about Leslie. But Martin was observant, and Ben had known that from day one. This conversation had been inevitable.

“Yeah it was,” Ben finally replied as minimally as he could. 

“Did something happen back when you went to Pawnee after Richmond?” Martin asked seriously. “You haven’t really mentioned Pawnee since then, and you’ve seemed kind of sad.”

Ben stared at the other man, surprised that Martin had noticed the change in his mood. 

‘It’s a long story,” Ben said after a moment. “But yeah, Leslie and I got in a fight before I left because Chris had offered me a job in Pawnee and I’d turned it down since I was supposed to come to Marion two days later. I didn’t tell her about the offer, so she got mad, and yesterday was the first time we’ve really talked since then, and I guess I’d kind of forgotten how much I miss Pawnee.” It wasn’t the whole story, but his auditing partner didn’t need to know all the details.

Martin smiled. “Well, Ben, I think you need to figure out what’s most important, and then everything else will just fall into place.” He stood. “I’ll see you later. And don’t forget Lauren’s coming back here in a bit to talk proposals. I’d brush up if I were you.” He turned and exited the office.

Ben sat back in his chair. Martin told him to figure out what was most important. He knew already that it was Leslie. Leslie, Pawnee, Chris, Tom, Andy, April, Donna, Ron, Ann, even Jerry. He had found his home, and that was most important. 

So he would tell his boss that he was leaving after Marion. Easy.

Except it wasn’t so easy. How was he going to survive the next probably three weeks without Leslie? Sure they’d email and call each other like they had in Richmond, but that wasn’t enough. He wanted things to be like they were those three days when he had last been in Pawnee. Except instead of he and Leslie getting into a fight, he wanted to kiss that amazing woman finally and make everything okay.

Ben looked at his watch. He had about half an hour to eat and read through the proposals again. He grabbed the sandwich he had brought with him and pulled up the proposals on his computer, trying to put Leslie and Pawnee out of his mind for at least the next hour or two.

Lauren arrived at exactly one o’clock, a binder in her arms and her eyes narrowed. 

Ben made his best effort to appear normal and businesslike, and soon Lauren relaxed, the pair of them falling back into their usual budgetary manner. 

“Can you pull up the spreadsheets for public works?” Lauren asked flipping through her binder. 

Ben minimized the proposal he had been looking at so he could pull up the spreadsheets, but he froze before he could click on anything else. 

He had forgotten that his computer background was now he and Leslie from the previous day’s Little League bid. Her smiling face looked out at him from the screen, beautiful and happy, and Ben felt that intense longing that he had been fighting the entire morning.

He took a deep breath and made a split-second decision. Leslie was what was important to him. Leslie was what he cared most in the world. Leslie was in Pawnee. And that’s where Ben needed to go.

Ben stood up suddenly.

Lauren turned from his binder to him. “Ben?” 

A small smile spread across his face. “I’m sorry, Lauren, but I quit.” 

“What?” Lauren asked, not understanding. 

“This isn’t worth it anymore,” Ben said simply. “I have to go back to Pawnee.”

He left his office to go find Martin, Lauren trying to get his attention as she trailed after him. 

Martin was in the city manager’s office where he and the other man were going through what looked like the latest city financial report. 

“Can I talk to you both quickly?” Ben asked Martin and the city manager as Lauren caught up to him.

Martin sat back in his chair expectantly. “What’s up, Ben?”

“Um, I quit. I’m leaving the state government.” 

The city manager’s eyes went wide with confusion, but Martin nodded as though he had expected Ben to say that.

“I can’t say we won’t miss you, but you have to do what you have to do,” Martin replied evenly. “Call the boss and let him know. Tell him Lauren and I have things under control here, and he can match me with a new partner for the next city.”

Ben nodded at his soon-to-be-former partner with a smile. “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

Ben moved past Lauren to the hallway so he could call his boss.

Behind him, he heard Lauren, bewildered, ask Martin what was going on.

“He misses his hometown; Pawnee means a lot to him,” Ben heard Martin reply. “And he’s completely in love with the Parks Deputy Director down there too, so that has a lot to do with it too.” 

“He’s in love with Pawnee Parks Deputy Director?” Lauren asked, her voice sounding less upset, but still unsure. 

“Well, he never actually told me that,” Martin amended his statement, “but it’s been pretty obvious for as long as I’ve known him.” 

Ben grinned as he pulled up his boss’s contact. He would never get tired of knowing that he was in love with Leslie Knope. 

The phone call with his boss was as difficult as he had figured it would be. He had worked for the state government for twelve years, and his boss was, understandably, puzzled by Ben’s sudden desire to quit his job. Ben just repeated over and over that he needed to go and figure out some stuff in his personal life, and that he was really sorry that it couldn’t wait until they were finished in Marion. He assured the other man that Martin and Lauren were perfectly capable of handling the situation for the next three weeks, and finally his boss stopped asking questions and let him go.

Ben went to pack up the few belongings he had in his office, and then he headed to the Parks Department.

“So this is it then,” Lauren said as she stood in front of him, her arms crossed and her expression a mix of confusion and acceptance.

Ben nodded affirmatively. “Here’s all the budget documents I had.” He handed her a stack of papers. “You’ve got this whole thing under control. You don’t need me. You barely even need Martin.”

Lauren smiled slightly, sighing as she took the papers from him. “We’ll miss having you in the department.” The rest of the parks employees hanging around them nodded in agreement.

“Well, it was really cool to get to know you all, and I’ll come back and visit if I’ve ever up here,” Ben replied, not sure when or if he ever actually _would_ be up here again. “And if any of you end up around Pawnee, let me know so we can meet up.” 

He shook hands with the deputy director and the other lower level employees before turning back to Lauren. Instead of a handshake, she gave him a quick hug.

“See you around, Wyatt.”

“See you, Lauren.” 

And then he left the department.

He stopped back in the city manager’s office and found that Martin was still there. 

“So you cleared everything with the boss then?” Martin said, standing up. 

Ben nodded. “Yup. He was kind of confused, but there’s nothing he could really do.” 

Ben turned to the city manager and shook his hand, thanking him for his hospitality before turning back to Martin. 

“If you’ve ever near Pawnee,” Ben said.

“Of course,” Martin replied, giving him a quick hug and clapping him on the back. “Good luck down there. Give me a call once you settle in.”

“I will.”

 Martin smiled. “It’s been great working with you.”

“Same to you,” Ben replied with a nod, and then he exited the office. 

It didn’t take Ben long to get his stuff together in the hotel, so by two-thirty he had checked out of his room and was on the road.

He hadn’t talked to anyone about his decision; he had barely even thought about it really. But April and Andy had barely even thought about getting married, and they were still going strong almost two months later. 

He considered telling Chris, but Ben knew that Leslie needed to be the first person in Pawnee who knew he was coming back for good. He could figure stuff out with Chris later. 

The drive was the longest almost three hours of his life. He knew this was what he wanted to do, but this decision was far more rash than any he had ever really made. Never in his life had Ben done something this huge for a woman. The closest that could come to it was him running for mayor after Cindy Eckert turned him down for senior prom, but the whole thing with Cindy was only a tiny part of why he had run for mayor; Leslie, on the other hand, was almost the entire reason he was coming back to Pawnee. But, regardless of the reason, Ben felt like this was what he absolutely had to do, so he drove to Pawnee as fast as he legally could. Today was _not_ the day he was going to get pulled over for speeding.

He finally pulled off the highway and drove into town. The last time he had come back it had felt like returning to where he belonged, but this time he felt it even more. The Sweetums billboards were advertising the candy corporation from _his_ hometown. The Pawnee Super Suites was _his_ town’s crappy motel. And Pawnee City Hall was _his_ city hall where his best friends worked.

It was a nearly 5:30 when he pulled into the almost deserted parking lot, but Ben knew the person he was looking for would be there. Five o’clock on a Friday night wasn’t quitting time for Leslie Knope.

He quickly entered the building and made his way through the halls. The door to Chris’s office stood closed, the shoeshine stand was empty, and all Ben could hear was a vacuum and some voices in an office at the other end of the building.

He walked into the Parks Department entrance and found the office deserted, save one blonde public servant typing furiously on her computer.

Ben approached her office slowly. She was staring happily at the screen as she wrote, that same smile from the day before still on her face. Ben had to offer a smile of his own when he noticed the arrowhead he had given back to her sitting out prominently on her desk.

As he reached her doorway, he cleared his throat loudly. 

Leslie looked up from her computer and clasped her hands over her mouth, her head shaking back and forth in disbelief. Above her hands, her eyes were radiating pure joy.

Leslie finally took a deep breath and put her hands down. “Okay Ben, you have _got_ to stop doing this showing up randomly and surprising me thing.” She stood up as grin spread across her face. 

Ben’s smile widened to match hers. “Always have to make an entrance,” he joked.

“What are you doing here?” Leslie asked, moving around her desk. “I was just emailing you.” 

A momentary spasm of excitement when through him as Ben realized that he was the reason Leslie had been smiling so widely at her computer.

But Ben was on a mission. He couldn’t take it anymore. It had been about twenty-hour hours since he and Leslie had admitted that they liked each other, and there was something he needed to do. 

As Leslie approached him, Ben moved forward to meet her, cupping her cheek with one hand and grabbing her waist with the other. 

As their lips met, Ben could tell that Leslie was taken aback, but a moment later she responded enthusiastically, her arms pulling him closer to her as she melted into him.

Ben had imagined kissing Leslie at least a hundred times since he had met her, but that was nothing to actually getting to do it. This was perfect. This was heaven. This was _home._

He came up to breathe for a moment, but Leslie pulled him back, kissing him with as much passion as she put into everything else in her life, if not more. 

They finally broke apart, Ben’s hand sliding from Leslie’s face to tangle itself in her hair. He smiled almost shyly at her.

“Wow,” she said softly, her hand moving behind his head.

“Yeah,” Ben replied, his other hand moving to pull her ever-so-slightly toward him. “I didn’t get to do that yesterday, so I figured I should.”

Leslie leaned her forehead in to rest against his. “You figured right.” She grinned. “So you drove all the way down here to kiss me before you go back to Marion?” 

“Not exactly.” Ben stroked her cheek lightly with his thumb. “I, um, I quit working for the state government. I’m back here to stay, if that’s alright with you.”

Leslie’s already happy expression grew positively ecstatic at Ben’s words. “You’re staying?” 

“I’m staying,” Ben affirmed.

Leslie wrapped her arms around him. “You’re back,” she breathed into his shoulder, “and you’re staying.”

“Yeah I am,” Ben smiled, pressing a kiss in Leslie’s hair. “I was so distracted this morning that I missed a meeting with all the department heads, and then when Lauren was trying to get me to worry about Marion budget proposals, I just realized I didn’t care, and I never would. I don’t want to go from city to city, never attaching myself to anything. I want to belong somewhere. I want to be excited to go to work because I care about what happens to the town. I want to get angry if the stupid town next door puts up a fence in one of our parks. I want to be able to say that my town makes the best waffles in the world. Martin told me to figure out what was the most important and then everything would come into place. And the most important things to me were you and Pawnee, so here I am. Home.” He smiled down at the woman in his arms, breathing her in.

Leslie held him closer to her. “You’re home,” she whispered, just loud enough that Ben could hear her.

“I figured I’d take the Assistant City Manager job,” Ben continued, “and it’ll all be great.”

Leslie stiffened slightly at his words and then moved back so she could see his face.

Her expression had darkened. 

“But wait, remember how I told you about how I kissed Tom back when you were in Richmond?” Leslie asked. 

Ben nodded, frowning, unsure as to how this related to their present situation. 

Leslie continued. “Chris gave me this big lecture about how he won’t let coworkers date, especially if they’re a superior and an inferior. If you take the Assistant City Manager job and I’m Parks Deputy Director, that puts us in that category...” Leslie trailed off.

Ben stared at the woman in front of him. Her eyes, which had been so happy a moment before, were suddenly filled with worry. Ben loved her so much. 

He offered Leslie a small smile. “Well, we talk to Chris and see what he says. Maybe if we’re upfront about it he won’t care.”

“And what if he does care?” Leslie asked nervously. 

“Then I’ll find somewhere else, don’t worry,” Ben said simply, taking her hands in his.

“But you came back here to be Assistant City Manager,” Leslie said, her eyes cloudy. “You want to be excited to go to work because you care what happens to this place,” she quoted his words back at him. 

Ben offered her a shrug and a half smile. “Yeah, I’d like that, but that’s not _really_ why I came back. Before, I always said I couldn’t stay in Pawnee because I didn’t have a job here or a place to live, but honestly, Leslie, I don’t care anymore. Pawnee’s wonderful, but it’s only a small part of the reason I’m here. More than anything, I came back here to be with _you_ …” Ben took a deep breath. This was a big thing to admit, but this was Leslie Knope. He didn’t want to waste any more time. “Because I’m in love with you, Leslie. I am _so_ in love with you.” 

A smile crept back onto Leslie’s face. “Really?” 

Ben raised his eyebrows. “Of course really! Leslie, you’re the best person I’ve ever met.” He looked down, his voice growing quieter. “You’ve completely changed my life.” He flicked his eyes up to see her response.

Leslie said nothing, but instead threw her arms around his neck and kissed him again. 

Ben responded immediately, his arms wrapping around her waist pressing her as close to him as possible. 

“I’m in love with you too,” Leslie said in the softest whisper as they separated.

Ben was certain that kissing her again was the only option he had at this point.

He pulled back after a few moments, an idea forming in his head. He grinned slyly at Leslie and grabbed her hand, pulling her out of the Parks Department. 

Leslie didn’t ask where they were going, but, behind her wide smile and shining eyes, Ben could see that she already knew.

A minute later found them on the second floor on the bench in front of the wildflower mural.

“The last memory I have of this place is a little sad,” Ben said as he sat down, Leslie following suit. “So I thought we should fix that.”

Leslie’s smile grew somehow even wider as she leaned in to meet him. 

Ben was pretty sure that kissing Leslie was the one thing he wanted to do for the rest of his life.

The broke apart, and Ben wrapped his arm around Leslie pulling her into his side.

“I still can’t believe you’re here,” she said laughing into his chest, playing with his tie. 

“Well, you’ll have to get used to it,” Ben said, resting his head on Leslie’s, “because I’m not going anywhere.”

“Please don’t.” Leslie’s voice was pleading. “I don’t know if I could do this again.” 

Ben tilted Leslie’s chin up to capture her lips in another kiss. “I don’t think I could either.”

Her worries alleviated, Leslie resettled herself against Ben. “So, you have any plans for tonight?”

Ben laughed warmly. “I was hoping one particularly beautiful public servant might accompany me to JJ’s Diner. I believe she’s of the opinion that it’s always time for breakfast food.”

Leslie turned her head to meet his eyes. “Oh, she is. And after that?”

Ben raised his eyebrows slightly. “I don’t formally have a place to stay at this point…”

“Well, until you figure that out, I do have a house, for tonight… if you want.” Leslie’s brow furrowed for a moment. “Ann does call it a scary nightmare hoarder nest, but it beats the Super Suites right?”

Ben laughed affectionately at Leslie’s offer. “Yeah it does.” He kissed her quickly.

“So, JJ’s?” Leslie said, grinning at Ben’s acceptance.

“JJs,” Ben affirmed, standing up, but making sure to keep his hand interlocked with Leslie’s. He never wanted to let her go. 

They stopped back in Leslie’s office so she could gather her things, and then they exited city hall. 

Ben breathed in the Pawnee air as he looked around, telling himself over and over that by some miracle, he was back to stay.

He felt Leslie squeeze his hand, and he turned to her.

She smiled at him, her eyes filled with nothing but happiness. “Welcome home, Ben.”

Ben pulled her toward him and kissed her again. This… this was home.


End file.
